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SEEN AND UNSEEN 

8-6'/ 

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BY 

E. KATHARINE BATES 



NEW YORK 

DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

214-220 EAST 23RD STREET 
1908 



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First Published . . July iqoj 
Second Impression . October iqoy 
Third Impression . March igo8 



Popular Edition 



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C. E. B. 

IN mp:mory of 

ONE WHO LOVED AND SUFFERED 

AND IN THE SURE AND CERTAIN HOPE 

OF A JOYFUL MEETING WITH 

HIM, AND WITH OTHERS 

WHO HAVE CROSSED 

THE BAR 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PACK 

INTRODUCTION . . . . ix 

I. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS ... I 

II. INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 . I3 

III. AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND . . 49 

IV. HONG KONG, ALASKA, AND NEW YORK . 7 1 
V. INDIA, 1 890-1 89 1 .... 80 

VI. SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 ... 97 

AN INTERLUDE . . . . I29 

VII. LADY CAITHNESS AND THE AVENUE WAGRAM 1 44 

VIII. FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON . . 161 

/ IX. 1896, HAUNTINGS BY THE LIVING AND THE 

DEAD ..... 176 

X. FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA . I95 

XI. A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND . . 2l8 

XII. I9OO-I9OI, ODDS AND ENDS . . 232 

XIII. 1903, A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA . . 260 

XIV. A FAMILY PORTRAIT AND PSYCHIC PHOTO- 

GRAPHY . . . . .274 

APPENDIX ..... 298 
vii 



INTRODUCTION 

Many years ago, whilst living at Oxford, I was in- 
vited by a very old friend, who had recently taken 
his degree, to a river picnic ; with Nuneham, I 
think, as its alleged object. 

Unfortunately, the day proved unfavourable, and 
we returned in open boats, also with open umbrellas ; 
a generally drenched and bedraggled appearance, 
and nothing to cheer us on the physical plane except 
a quantity of iced coffee which had been ordered in 
anticipation of a tropical day. 

Under these rather trying conditions I can re- 
member getting a good deal of amusement out of 
the companions in the special boat which proved 
to be my fate. Our host, being a clever and interest- 
ing man himself, had collected clever and interesting 
people round him, on the " Birds of a Feather " 
principle, and I happened to sit between two ladies, 
one the wife (now, alas ! the widow) of a man who 
was to become later on one of our most famous 
bishops ; the other — her bosom friend and deadly 
rival — the wife of an equally distinguished Oxford 
don. 

The iced coffee combined with the pouring rain 
may have been partly to blame, but certainly the 
conversation that went on between the two ladies, 
across my umbrella, was decidedly Feline. 

To pass the time we were valiantly endeavouring 
ix 



X INTRODUCTION 

to play " Twenty Questions " from the bottom of the 
boat, and the Bishop's widow was asking the 
questions. She had triumphantly elicited the fact 
that we had thought of a cinder — and an historical 
cinder — and the twentieth and last permissible 
question was actually hovering on her lips. " It 
was the cinder that Richard Coeur de Lion's horse 
fell upon," she said eagerly. Of course, we all realised 
that this was a most obvious " slip " in the case of 
so highly educated a woman ; but the Bosom Friend 
could not resist putting out the velvet paw : "A 
little confusion in the centuries, I think, dear," she 
said sweetly. The unfortunate questioner practi- 
cally " never smiled again " during that expedition. 
But a still more crushing blow was in store for her. 

The conversation turned later upon questions of 
style in writing or speaking, and with perhaps 
pardonable revenge, she said to her rival : 

" I always notice that you say ' one ' so often — 
' one does this or that,' and so forth." 

" Really, dear ? That is curious. Now I al- 
ways notice that you say ' I ' so continually ! " 

The cut and thrust came with the rapidity of 
expert fencers. 

And this brings me to the real gist of my story. 

It is considered the most heinous offence " to 
say /," and every conceivable device is resorted to, 
no matter how clumsy, in order to prevent the 
catastrophe of a writer being forced to speak of 
himself in the first person. 

To my mind, there is a good deal of affectation and 
pose about this, and in anything of an autobiography 
it becomes insupportable. 



INTRODUCTION xi 

" The writer happened upon one occasion to be 
present, etc." " He who pens these unworthy 
pages was once travelhng to Scotland, etc. etc." 

Which of us has not groaned under these self- 
conscious euphemisms ? " Why not say ' / ' and 
have done with it ? " we are wont to exclaim in 
desperation after pages of this kind of thing. 

Now I propose " to say / " and " have done with 
it," and not waste time in trying to find ingenious 
and wearisome equivalents. 

That is my first point. 

Secondly, in this record of psychic experiences 
I mean to keep clear of another intolerable nuisance 
— I mean the continual introduction of capital 
letters and long dashes in order to conceal identity 
in such episodes. 

The motive is admirable, but the method is de- 
testable. 

One can only judge by personal experience. I 
know that when I read a rather involved narrative 
of sufficiently involved psychic doings, and Mr 

Q , Miss B , Mr C , and Mr C.'s maternal 

aunt Mrs G figure wildly in it, I am driven 

desperate in trying to force some idea of personality 
into these meaningless letters of the alphabet. 

To conceal the identity of Mr Brown, who was 
once guilty of seeing a ghost, may be and most 
frequently is, a point of honour, but why not call 
him Mr Smith, and say he lived in Buckingham- 
shire, and thus rouse a definite mental conception 
in your reader's brain, instead of calling him Mr Z. 

of W , and thus setting up mental irritation 

before the ghost comes upon the scene ? 



xii INTRODUCTION 

Having cleared the ground so far, I will now 
mention my third and last point. 

It is usual when writing reminiscences of any 
kind to anticipate your reader's criticisms, and try 
to increase his interest in your experiences by a sort 
of false humility in deprecating their value. The 
idea is doubtless founded on a sound knowledge of 
Human Nature, but it may easily fall into exaggera- 
tion. Nothing is, of course, so disastrous as to 
praise beforehand a person, a picture, a voice, a 
poem, a book, or anything else in the wide world, 
in which we wish our friends to take any special 
interest. Such a course naturally rouses unconscious 
antagonism in poor, fallen Human Nature before we 
even see or hear the object of our later bitter 
aversion. But there is a medium in all things, and 
it is scarcely polite to put the intelligence of our 
readers sufficiently low to be manipulated by such 
obvious arts. 

Moreover, it has been well said that the history 
of any one human being — truthfully told (I would 
add, intelligently assimilated) — would be of en- 
thralling interest and value. If this be true on the 
ordinary physical, intellectual, and spiritual planes 
it should not be less true, surely, where a fourth 
plane of psychic experience is added to the other 
three ? 

Then again, there is no need to apologise for 
experiences limited in interest or in amount. 

These terms are of necessity comparative. For 
example, my experiences are limited compared with 
those of some people I have known, who have been 
either more highly endowed with psychic gifts or 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

who have considered it advisable to cultivate such 
gifts to a high point of efhciency ; or lastly, with 
whom opportunities for experience have been more 
numerous. But, on the other hand, my experi- 
ences have been great compared with those of 
some people at least equally interested in these 
subjects. 

Geographically speaking, I have been peculiarly 
fortunate, having had the opportunity of witnessing 
phenomena of this kind in many countries, differing 
widely in Race, Climate, and other conditions. 

I have been told many times that I could develop 
clairvoyance, clairaudience, or sit as a materialising 
medium, but have had no desire to go further in 
these matters. 

I have seen quite as much as I wish to see, I have 
heard quite as much as I wish to hear, and should 
be very sorry personally to increase either of these 
psychic possibilities by the practice that makes 
more perfect. 

Some consider this lamentable cowardice and 
want of faith. Each one must judge for himself 
in such a matter. Faith in this connection may 
easily degenerate into foolhardiness. 

" Greater is He that is for you than all those who 
are against you " has been quoted to me again and 
again in deprecation of my attitude in these things. 
It has always appeared to me a matter in which 
individual judgment must be exercised, and upon 
which no broad and general lines of conduct can 
be laid down. 

One man can cycle fifty miles in the day, and 
dance all night, and be the better for the experience. 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

Another attempting the same feat, but not having 
the same constitution, might do himself lasting 
injury. It is exactly the same thing on the psychic 
plane. Our psychic constitutions differ at least as 
much as our physical ones. We may overtax either, 
and with similar consequences. We have no right 
to expect protection or immunity on either plane, 
where we neglect the warnings of that inner monitor 
who is always our best guide. 

As a final word of warning, I would say : " Beware 
of your motives in cultivating psychic capacity." 
It is so easy to mistake love of notoriety, even in 
one's own little milieu, for love of Truth. There is 
always an eager, curious crowd anxious to get 
" messages " or " hear raps," or to see any other 
little psychic parlour tricks which we may be in- 
duced to play for their benefit. At first one feels 
it is almost a sacred duty to satisfy, or attempt 
to satisfy, these psychic cormorants ; but later, 
wisdom comes with experience. 

At one time I felt bound to collect my friends 
and acquaintances round me and tell them all I 
knew upon these subjects, and doubtless it was right 
to do so whilst I " felt that way,'''' to quote an ex- 
pressive Americanism. 

But the inevitable day came when I realised that 
I had spent my strength and my muffins in vain ; 
for these gatherings generally took the form of tea- 
parties, not too large to cope with single-handed — 
say from ten to twenty people. They came at 
4.30 P.M. and stayed till 8 p.m., when most of them 
remembered they ought to have dined at 7.45 p.m., 
and went away saying " How immensely they had 



INTRODUCTION xv 

enjoyed themselves," and " How interesting it all 
was." 

And so far as any permanent good came of it, 
there the matter ended. 

BeHeve me, when people are prepared for this 
development of their finer senses they will come to 
you. There is no need to go into the highways 
and hedges and compel them to come in. If they 
do come they won't stay — why should they ? 
They have not got there yet, to use a thoroughly hateful 
and ungrammatical but absolutely accurate sentence. 

If you try to carry them on the back of your own 
knowledge and experiences, you can do so for a 
time, but eventually they will struggle down, or 
you will put them down from sheer fatigue, and 
then they will run back to the spot where you 
found them, and thence w^ork out their own psychic 
evolution either in this or in some future term of 
existence. 

When their interest is exhausted — to say nothing 
of your patience — you will hear that they have 
called you a crank and lamented your " wasting 
your time over such nonsense." That will be your 
share of the transaction. 

I know this because I have been there — moi qui 
vous parte. 

" Let every man be persuaded in his own mind," 
but don't try to persuade anyone else. When the 
right time comes he will ask your help and counsel 
without any persuasion. 

Of course, I am speaking only of private work. 
Lectures and congresses are of the greatest possible 
value ; for no one knows whom he may be ad- 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

dressing on these occasions, and the seed may bfe 
falling into soil prepared, but often unconsciously 
prepared, for its reception. 
To sum up the whole matter : 

1. Be strong in the conviction that eventually 
good must always conquer evil, but remember also 
that you individually may have a very bad time 
meanwhile if you go amongst mixed influences and 
evoke that which at present you are not strong 
enough to withstand. 

2. Know when to speak and when to be silent. 

3. Receive what comes to you spontaneously, but 
never allow yourself to be cajoled or persuaded into 
developing your mediumship to gratify curiosity ; 
not even on the plea of scientific duty, unless you 
are fully conscious in your own mind that this is 
the special work which is laid upon you. 

And bearing these three simple rules in mind, we 
may go forward with brave hearts and level heads 
on the Quest which has been so plainly opened out 
to us in this twentieth century. 

E. Katharine Bates. 



SEEN AND UNSEEN 

CHAPTER I 

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 

Having set myself to write a personal record of 
psychic experiences, I must " begin at the be- 
ginning," as the children say. 

When only nine years old I lost my father — 
the Rev. John Ellison Bates of Christ Church, 
Dover — and my earliest childish experience of any- 
thing supernormal was connected with him. He 
had been an invalid all my short life, and I was quite 
accustomed to spending days at a time without 
seeing him. His last illness, which lasted about a 
fortnight, had therefore no special significance for 
me, and my nurse, elder brother, and godmother, 
who were the only three people in the house at the 
time, gave strict orders that none of the servants 
should give me a hint of his being dangerously ill. 
These instructions were carefully carried out, and 
yet I dreamed three nights running — the three 
nights preceding his decease — that he was dead. I 
was entirely devoted to my father, who had been 
father and mother to me in one, and these dreams 
no doubt broke the terrible shock of his death to me. 
How well I remember, that cold, dreary February 



2 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

morning, being hastily dressed by candle-light by 
strange hands, and then my dear old nurse (who 
had been by his bedside all night) coming in and 
telling me the sad news with tears streaming down 
her cheeks. It seemed no news at the moment ; 
and yet I had spoken of my dreams to no one, " for 
fear they should come true," having some pathetic, 
childish notion that silence on my part might avert 
the catastrophe. In all his previous and numerous 
illnesses I had never dreamt that any special one 
was fatal. 

During the next few years of school life my 
psychic faculty remained absolutely in abeyance. 
In a fashionable school, surrounded by chattering 
companions and the usual paraphernalia of school 
work, classes, and masters, etc., I can, however, 
recall many a time when suddenly everything around 
me became unreal and I alone seemed to have any 
true existence ; and even that was for the time 
merged in a rather unpleasant dream, from which 
I hoped soon to wake up. This sensation was quite 
distinct from the one — also well known to me in 
those days and later — of having " done all this 
before," and knowing just what somebody was 
about to say. 

Probably both these sensations are common to 
most young people. It would be interesting to 
note which of the two is the more universal. 

I pass on now to the time when I was about 
eighteen years old, and a constant visitor, for weeks 
and months at a time, in the house of my godfather, 
the archdeacon of a northern diocese. His grand- 
son, then a young student at Oxford, of about my 



EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 3 

own age, must have been what we should now call 
a very good sensitive. It was with him that I sat 
at my first " table," more as a matter of amusement 
than anything else, and certainly young Morton 
Freer treated the " spirits " in the most cavalier 
fashion. They did not seem to resent this, and he 
could do pretty much what he liked with them. 
This may be a good opportunity for explaining that 
when I speak in this narrative of " spirits " I do so 
to save constant periphrasis, and am quite con- 
sciously " begging the question " very often, as a 
matter of verbal convenience. 

In those days I don't think we troubled ourselves 
much about theories, and when we found that 
Morton and I alone could move a heavy dining- 
room table, or any other piece of heavy furniture 
quite beyond our normal powers, practically with- 
out exerting any strength at all, we looked upon it 
as an amusing experience without caring to inquire 
whether the energy involved had been generated 
on this side the veil or on the other side. We could 
certainly not have moved such weights under 
ordinary circumstances, even by putting forth all 
our combined strength, and we could only do so, 
for some mysterious reason, when we had been 
" sitting at the table " beforehand. Ingenious 
Theories of Human Electricity raised to a higher 
power by making a Human Battery, etc. etc., were 
not so common then as now, and we accepted facts 
without trying to solve their problems. 

The dear, hospitable Archdeacon would put his 
venerable head inside the door now and then, shake 
it at us half in fun, and yet a good deal in earnest, 



4 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

and I think he was more than doubtful whether 
our parlour games were quite lawful ! 

We were very innocent and very ignorant in those 
days on the subject of psychic laws ; and probably 
this was our salvation, for I can remember no 
terrible or weird experience, such as one reads of 
nowadays when tyros take to experiments. 

And yet my knowledge and experiences of later 
days lead me to endorse most heartily the well- 
known dictum of Lawrence Oliphant — namely, that 
when he saw people sitting down in a casual, irre- 
sponsible way to " get messages through a table, ''^ it 
reminded him of an ignorant child going into a 
powder magazine with a lighted match in its 
hand. 

Staying in this same house, I can next recall a 
flying visit from a brother of mine, who had just 
spent three months, on leave from India, in America, 
where he had taken introductions, and had been the 
guest of various hospitable naval and military men, 
who had shown him round the Washington Arsenal, 
West Point Academy, and so forth. My kind old 
host had begged him to take us on his way back to 
London ; and I remember well his look of utter 
amazement when Morton and I had lured him to 
" the table " one afternoon, and he was told cor- 
rectly the names of two or three of these American 
gentlemen. 

" I must have mentioned them to my sister in 
my letters," he said, turning to the younger man. 
I knew this was not the case, but it was difficult to 
prove a negative. 

It was a relief, therefore, when my brother sug- 



EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 5 

gested what he considered a " real test," where 
previous knowledge on my part must be ex- 
cluded. 

*' Let them tell me the name of a bearer I had 
once in India — he lived with me for more than 
twelve years — always returning to me when I came 
back from English furlough, and yet at the end 
of that time he suddenly disappeared, without 
rhyme or reason, and I have neither seen nor heard 
of him since. I know my sister has never heard his 
name. That would be something like a test, but, 
of course, it won't come off," he added cynically. 

The wearisome spelling out began. 

The table rose up at R, then at A. 

" Quite wrong," my brother called out in triumph. 
** I knew how it would be when any real test came. 
Fortunately, too, it is wildly wrong — neither the 
letter before nor the letter after the right one, so 
you cannot wriggle out of it that way." 

" Never mind. Major Bates," said Morton Freer 
good-naturedly. " Let us go on all the same, and 
see what they mean to spell out." 

Fortunately, we did so, with a most interesting 
result ; for the right name was given after all, but 
spelt in the Hindoostanee and not the European 
fashion. The name in true Hindoostanee was 
R^m Din — but Europeans spelt it Rham Deen — 
and so my brother himself had entirely forgotten 
when the A was given that it had any connection 
with the man's name. When the whole w^ord was 
spelt out, of course he remembered, and then his 
face was a study ! 

" Good gracious ! it is right enough, and that is 



6 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

the real Hindoostanee spelling, too. I never thought 
of that when the A came ! " 

I think this episode knocked the bottom out of 
his scepticism for some years to come. 

Even now this case precludes ordinary and con- 
scious telepathy. Mr Podmore would be reduced 
to explaining that the Hindoostanee spelling was 
latent in my brother's consciousness, though his 
normal self repudiated it. 

Another curious incident — still more difficult to 
explain upon the Thought Transference Theory 
(unless we stretch it to include a possible impact 
of all thoughts, at all times and from all quarters 
of the globe, upon everyone else's brain) — occurred 
under the same hospitable roof. 

One of the Archdeacon's nieces came to stay in 
the house about this time. She was considerably 
my senior, and was very kind to me, with the thought- 
ful kindness an older woman can show to a sensitive 
young girl. This awakened in me an affection 
which, I am thankful to say, still exists between 
us. This lady was considerably under thirty years 
old at the time, but to my young ideas she seemed 
already in the sear and yellow leaf from the matri- 
monial point of view ! One must remember how 
different the standard of age was more than thirty 
years ago ! 

It was also the time when marriage was looked 
upon not only as the most desirable, but as almost 
the only possible, career for a woman. 

So when Morton and this lady and I were " sitting 
at the table " in the gloaming one evening, I said, 
with trembling eagerness ; "Morton, do ask if Carrie 



EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 7 

will ever be married," for the case seemed to me 
almost desperate at the advanced age of twenty- 
seven or twenty-eight ! 

I must mention that for some occult reason 
(which I have entirely forgotten) I trusted fervently 
that a Hungarian or Polish name might be given 
after the satisfactory " Yes " had been spelt out, 
but, alas ! nothing of the kind occurred. 

" The table " began with a D, and then suc- 
cessively E, H, A, V were given. No one ever 
heard of a Polish or Hungarian name of the kind, 
and I remember saying petulantly : " Oh, give it up, 
Morton. It's all nonsense ! Nobody ever heard of 
a Mr Dehav'' 

Once more Morton rescued a really good bit of 
evidence by his imperturbable perseverance. 

" Wait a bit ! Let us see what is coming," he 
said. 

I took no further personal interest in the experi- 
ment. Either Morton concluded the name was 
finished, or there was some confusion in getting the 
next letters, owing doubtless to my impetuous 
disgust. Anyway, he went on to say : 

" Let us ask where the fellow lives at the present 
time." This was instantly answered by " Fresh- 
water,'^^ and the further information given that he 
was a widower. 

None of us knew any man, married or single, who 
lived at Freshwater, and the incident was relegated 
to the limbo of failures. 

Several years later, however, my friend did marry 
a gentleman whose name (a very pretty one) began 
with the five despised letters, and he was a widower. 



8 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

and had been living in his own house at Freshwater 
at the time mentioned. She did not meet him imtil 
some years after our curious experience. 

About the same time, but in the south of England, 
my attention was again drawn to metapsychics by 
an experience connected with the death of the famous 
Marquis of Hastings, of horse-racing repute. As a 
young girl I lived close to the Mote Park at Maid- 
stone, where his sister, the present Lady Romney, 
was then living as Lady Constance Marsham. The 
Reverend David Dale Stewart and his wife (he was 
Vicar of Maidstone, and I made my home with them 
for some years after leaving school) were friends of 
hers, and she sometimes came to see them in a 
friendly way in the morning. On one of these 
occasions, when Lady Constance had just returned 
from paying her brother a visit in a small shooting- 
box in the eastern counties (I think), Mrs Stewart 
remarked that she was afraid the change had not 
done Lady Constance much good, as she was looking 
far from well. In those days Lady Romney was an 
exceptionally strong and healthy young woman. 

She said rather impatiently : " Well, the fact is 
I did a very stupid thing the other day — I never did 
such a thing before — I fainted dead away for the 
first time in my life." 

Asked for the reason of this, she told us that she 
and her husband and Lord and Lady Hastings were 
dining quietly one evening together, two guests who 
had been expected not having arrived by the train 
specified. 

Looking up Bradshaw, and finding no other train 
that could bring them until quite late at night. 



EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 9 

the other four sat down to dinner. Soup and fish 
had already been discussed, when a carriage was 
heard driving up to the door, and they naturally 
concluded that their guests had discovered some 
means of getting across country by another line. 
Lord Hastings said : 

" Tell Colonel and Mrs that we began dinner, 

thinking they could not arrive till much later, but 
that we are quite alone, and beg they will join us as 
soon as possible." 

The servant went to the door, prepared with the 
message given, flung it open — but no carriage, no 
horses were there ! Everybody had heard it driving 
up, nevertheless. 

Remembering the old family legend that a carriage 
and pair is heard driving up the avenue before the 
head of the Hastings family dies, Lady Romney 
fainted dead away, very much to her own surprise 
and mortification ; for she was, and doubtless is 
still, an uncommonly sensible woman, '' quite above 
all superstitions." 

The episode struck me as curious at the time ; 
but the impression passed, and a few days later I 
went to pay a visit to friends of mine in Buckingham- 
shire. Soon after my arrival I happened to mention 
the story, and was much laughed at as a " super- 
stitious little creature, to think twice of such non- 
sense." " Of course, everyone had been mistaken 
in supposing they heard wheels or horses' hoofs — 
nothing could be simpler ! " 

And yet before I left that house, three weeks 
later, all the newspapers were full of long obituary 
notices of the Marquis of Hastings. These were so 



10 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

interesting that my friend's husband had reached 
the second long column in The Times before any of 
us remembered my story, which had been treated 
with so much contempt. It suddenly flashed across 
my mind : " Owen ! Remember the carriage and 
pair and how you laughed at me ! " They were 
forced to confess " it was certainly rather odd,^"* the 
usual refuge of the psychically destitute ! 

A shake of the kaleidoscope, and I see another 
incident before me of more personal interest. 

At the time of the outbreak of the Afghan War, 
in the autumn of 1878, I was living with very old 
friends in Oxford. My brother of the R^m Din 
incident was once more in India, and had been 
Military Secretary for some years at Lahore to Sir 
Robert Egerton, who was at that time Lieutenant- 
Governor of the Punjab. 

When the war broke out, my brother, of course, 
went off to join his regiment for active service ; 
but at the time of my experience it was impossible 
that he could have reached the seat of war, and I 
knew this well. 

I was in excellent spirits about him, for he had 
been through many campaigns, and loved active 
service, as all good soldiers do. Moreover, I had 
just read a charming letter which Sir Robert Egerton 
had sent him on resigning his appointment as 
Military Secretary to take up more active duty to 
his country. 

Yet it was just at this juncture — when, humanly 
speaking, there was no cause for any special anxiety 
— that I woke up one morning with the gloomiest 
and most miserable forebodings about this special 



EARLY RECOLLECTIONS ii 

brother. Nothing of the kind had ever occurred 
to me before, though he had been through many 
campaigns in India, China, Abyssinia, and elsewhere. 

It was an overwhelming conviction of some great 
and definite disaster to him, and my friends in vain 
tried to argue me out of such an unreasonable terror 
by pointing out, truly enough, that he could not 
possibly be within the zone of danger at that time. 
I could only repeat : "I know that something 
terrible has happened to him, wherever he is. It 
may not be death, but it is some terrible calamity." 

I spent the day in tears and in absolute despair, 
and wrote to tell him of my conviction. Allowing 
for difference of time between Quetta and Oxford, 
my mental telegram reached me in the same hour 
that my brother, whilst on the march, and only thirty 
miles beyond Quetta, was suddenly struck down 
in his tent by the paralysis which kept him confined 
to his chair — a helpless sufferer — for twenty-eight 
years. 

Perhaps, now that I know so much more of mental 
currents, I might have received a more definite 
message an regards the true nature of the calamity. 
It could not have been more marked, nor more 
definite as regards the fact of it. 

My condition of hopeless misery obliged me to put 
off all engagements that day, and I did nothing but 
fret and lament over him, with the exception of 
writing the one letter mentioned, in which I told him 
of my strange and sad experience. 

In time, of course, the first sharp impression 
passed, and soon a cheery letter arrived from him, 
written, of course, before the fatal day. My experi- 



12 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

ence in Oxford occurred on the morning of 4th 
December 1878. It was well on in January 1879 
before the corroboration arrived, in a letter written 
to us by a stranger. Communication was delayed 
not only by the war, but also by the fact that my 
poor brother was lying at the time deprived of both 
movement and speech, and could only spell out 
later, by the alphabet, the address of his people at 
home. 



CHAPTER II 

INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 

An interval of seven years occurs between the 
events recorded in the last chapter and my first 
visit to America, which took place in the autumn 
of 1885. 

During these years no abnormal experiences came 
to me, nor had I the smallest wish for any. 

The table turnings with Morton Freer were a 
thing of the past, and were looked back upon by me 
in the light of a childish amusement rather than 
anything else. Quite other interests had come into 
my life, specially as regards literature and music ; 
and I never gave a thought to spooks or spiritualism, 
nor did I really know anything about the latter 
subject. It is true that on one occasion a curate 
at Great Mario w had spoken to me about Mr S. C. 
Hall and his researches, and I think he must have 
given me an introduction to the dear old man, for 
I remember going to see him " with a lady friend " 
(he made a great point of this, somewhat to my 
amusement), and finding a charming old man with 
silver locks, a fine head, and a nice white frilly 
shirt. 

He spoke of his dear friend " Mrs Jencken," 
whom he considered the only reliable medium, and 
showed us some sheets full of hieroglyphics, which 

13 



14 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

he said were messages obtained through her influence 
from " his dear wife." 

It was all so much Greek to me in those days, 
and only true sympathy with the poor old man's 
evident loneliness and adoration of his wife's memory 
prevented my making merry over the extraordinary 
delusions of the old gentleman, when my companion 
and I had left his rooms in Sussex villas. 

Later, I lived during two years with Mrs Lankester 
and her daughters whilst looking after an invalid 
brother in London ; and I need scarcely point out 
that constant intercourse with Professor Ray 
Lankester in his mother's house was not calculated 
to encourage any psychic proclivities, even had these 
latter not been entirely latent with me at that time. 

I heard a great deal about the " Slade exposure," 
both from Professor Lankester and his friend Dr 
Donkin, who often came to us with him. When 
arranging my American tour in 1885, Mrs Lankester 
kindly gave me an introduction to Mrs Edna Hall, 
an old friend of theirs, who had been living in their 
house during the whole period of the Slade trial. 
This lady — an American — lived permanently in 
Boston, and curiously enough (in view of the pre- 
ceding facts) it was she who persuaded Miss Greenlow 
and me to attend our first seance in Boston. Mrs 
Edna Hall had honoured Mrs Lankester's intro- 
duction most hospitably ; but she was too busy a 
woman to do as much for us as her kindness sug- 
gested, and she had therefore introduced us to 
another friend — Mrs Maria Porter — a most pictur- 
esque, clever, and characteristic figure in Boston 
society in the eighties. 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 15 

Both these ladies accompanied us to the " Sisters 
Berry." Mrs Edna Hall had no sort of illusions 
on the subject. She said quite frankly that she 
only took us there because it was a feature of 
American life which we ought not to miss, and 
which would probably amuse us, if only by showing 
the gullibility of Human Nature. 

One is always apt to read past experiences in the 
light of present convictions. Fortunately, I kept 
a diary at the time, and have a faithful record of 
what took place, and, which is still more valuable, 
of the impressions formed at the time. 

The extracts connected with this seance in Boston, 
and later experiences in New York, are taken partly 
from my record at the time and partly from the 
chapter on " Spiritualism in America," published in 
my book entitled " A Year in the Great Republic." 

Speaking of this first seance in Boston, I see that 
I have said : 

''' I went to the ' Sisters Berry ' in a very anta- 
gonistic frame of mind, determined beforehand that 
the whole thing was a swindle (italics are recent), 
accompanied by friends who were even more sceptical 
than myself, if that were possible." I go on then to 
describe the usual cabinet, and pass on to the follow- 
ing extract : — 

An old Egyptian now appeared, and a man in 
the circle, who had been sitting near my friend 
Miss Greenlow all the evening, went up and spoke 
to him, and then asked " that the lady who had been 
sitting near him " might come up also, which she 
did ; but she said she could distinguish no features, 



i6 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

and only felt a warm, damp hand passed over hers. 
Miss Greenlow was next called up by the spirit of 
a young man who wished to embrace her, but who 
was finally proved to be the departed friend of the 
lady who sat next to her. Miss Greenlow returned 
to her seat, furious, declaring that it was a horrible, 
coarse-looking creature, unlike anyone she had ever 
seen in her life. 

Mrs Porter made valiant attempts to investigate 
the figures who came forth at intervals, but was 
invariably waved back by the master of the cere- 
monies. 

" Will that lady kindly sit down ? This spirit 
is not for her. It wishes to communicate with 
its own friends, and she is disturbing the conditions, 
and forcing the spirit back into the cabinet." 

There were evidently many old stagers there, 
who flew up like lamp-lighters on every possible 
occasion, with exclamations of : " Oh, Uncle 
Charlie, is that you ? " " How do you do, Jem ? " 
and so forth. 

One old lady, in a mob cap and black gown, was 
introduced as a certain Sister Margaret who had 
taught in St Peter's School, Boston. She came to 
speak to a former pupil, who gave her spiritualistic 
experiences in such remarkably bad grammar as 
reflected small credit on Sister Margaret's teaching 
of the English language. 

This girl told us how anxious she had always been 
to see her old teacher, who had appeared to her 
several times in the seance room, but never in her 
old garments — a sort of sister's dress. After wishing 
very fervently one night, Sister Margaret appeared 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 17 

dressed in mob cap and gown, saying : " Don't you 
see my dress ? I came in it at your wish." 

" Yes," answered the girl ; " and I thank you for 
gratifying my wish. Since which time," she added, 
" I have been a firm behever in spirituaHsm." 

A young French girl, in draggly black garments 
and a shock of thick black hair, then came forward 
and rushed amongst us, trying to find someone to 
talk French with her. My friend Mrs Hall went up 
first, and then I was told to go up and speak to her. 
I took hold of her hands, and grasped them firmly 
for a moment. They seemed to be ordinary flesh 
and blood, but I am bound to confess that they 
appeared to lengthen out in a somewhat abnormal 
fashion when the pressure was removed. 

Her face was very cadaverous, and she spoke in 
a quick, hurried way, as if time were an object. She 
said she understood a little English, but could not 
speak it. Her mother had been French ; her 
father an Indian, " un brave homme." 

It seemed to me that a good deal of kissing and 
embracing went on. One old grey-headed gentle- 
man was constantly walking up to the cabinet and 
being embraced by a white figure, whose arms we 
could just see, thrown round his neck, in the dim 
light. (I note that the light here was much less 
than with Mrs Stoddart Gray in New York.) 

The only excitement was the chance of some dis- 
turbance before we left ; for Mrs Porter became more 
and more indignant with the "gross imposture," 
which culminated when at length she was called up 
and told that " a young man wished to speak with 
her." She asserted that it was " the most horrible. 



i8 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

grinning, painted creature who hissed into her 
ears.'* 

The master of the house begged her to be patient, 
and try to hear what the spirit wished to say, but 
with a very emphatic " No, no, no " she resumed 
her seat, amidst a general titter of laughter. 

At the last we were told that three little girls, 
whose mother sat near the cabinet, wished to 
materialise, but found it difficult to do so, owing to 
the absence of children in the audience. 

The mother seemed very anxious to see them ; but 
suddenly the gas was turned up, and the seance 
declared over — a very abrupt finale to a piece of 
unmitigated humbug, I should say. 

These extracts sufficiently show the spirit in which 
I entered upon my investigations and the result of 
that spirit. I think even Mr Podmore would have 
considered me thoroughly sound on that first evening. 
I have no doubt that the violence of Mrs Porter's 
antagonism, and the smiling cynicism of Mrs Hall 
in face of the " American experience " she had 
proposed for us, added to my own preconceived 
prejudices. 

I am aware that the Berry Sisters have been 
" exposed," thus sharing the fate of all other 
public mediums. In the light of later experiences, 
however, I feel sure that I might have received 
something personally evidential on this occasion 
had my attitude of mind given hospitality to any 
possible visitors from the Unseen. 

The next extracts from my diary refer to a seance 
which we attended in New York a few days after 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 19 

our arrival there, and some two or three weeks 
later than the Boston sitting already described. 

Our stay in Boston had extended to three months 
from the original fortnight we had planned for the 
visit. I had taken a few very good introductions 
there : to Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes, Colonel 
Wentworth Higginson, and others of the Boston 
alumni, and as several receptions had been kindly 
arranged for us, and my name had appeared many 
times during the winter in various local papers, 
it would have been easy for the Sisters Berry to 
find out something about me and my companion, 
and utilise the knowledge by faking up a convenient 
spirit, who could have talked glibly of my literary 
tastes, and so forth. Nothing of the sort occurred, 
however, although our first seance only took place 
a week or two before we left Boston, after my three 
months' stay there. 

This fact should certainly be " counted as 
righteousness " to the much abused Sisters ! 

It was the more curious, that our first seance in 
New York, within a few days of our arrival, and in 
a metropolis where at the time we were absolute 
strangers, should have been so much more successful 
as regards evidential experiences. 

I will again quote from my diary of 1886. The 
medium visited on this occasion was Mrs Cadwell, 
who has since died. 

We knew nothing beforehand of the medium, 
who lived in a small flat in an unfashionable quarter. 
Some eight people only were assembled in the ex- 
tremely small room. All were perfect strangers 



20 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

to Miss Greenlow and me, but a fancied likeness 
in one lady present to a picture I had seen of Mrs 
Beecher Stowe led me to ask if it were she, and I 
was told that my surmise was correct. 

There was no room for a cabinet, so a curtain was 
hung across a tiny alcove, just the ordinary " arch " 
found in most rooms of the kind. 

When I went behind the curtain with the female 
medium, before the sitting began, there was barely 
space for us both to turn round in. The carpet on 
either side the curtain was one piece. There was 
absolutely no room for any trap-door machinery, 
even could such have been worked successfully in 
the perfect silence in which we sat, within tw^o feet 
of the alcove. The room was about the size of the 
small back dining-room in an ordinary London 
lodging — say in Oxford or Cambridge Terrace, for 
example. 

The medium sat amongst us at first, only going 
behind the curtain after a few moments, when she 
was " under control " as it is called. 

A little child of hers, who died some years ago at 
the age of four, is supposed to help in the materiali- 
sations, but is never seen outside the curtains. If 
she came out herself she would not be able to help 
the others to do so. I mention these things in the 
words in which they were told to me, offering no 
comment, but putting the case for the moment 
as spiritualists would put it. To do this, and then 
to give a faithful and unprejudiced account of^what 
took place, seems to me the only fair way of treating 
such a subject. 

I was told again and again that too much con- 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 21 

centration of thought on the part of the audience 
was deterrent. This accounts for music as an 
invariable accompaniment of all such sittings. It 
seems to harmonise the circle, to break up over- 
concentration, and may also, unfortunately, serve 
to cover the doings of dishonest mediums. 

It must not, however, be supposed that in this 
case the materialisations went on only whilst we 
were singing. This might point to a possible " trap- 
door theory," although in a city where flats abound 
(rooms, not human beings !) there would still be the 
difficulty of getting your downstairs neighbours to 
look kindly upon such proceedings. As a matter 
of fact, we were often sitting in absolute silence 
when fresh " spirits " appeared. 

I can corroborate the assertion that too much 
concentration of thought upon them proves deterrent 
to the spirits, for on more than one occasion I heard 
a voice from the curtain or cabinet saying : " Do 
get the people's minds off us ; we can do nothing 
whilst they are fixed upon us so intensely," as 
though thought in spirit life corresponded to some 
physical obstacle on the earth plane. 

The first spirit who came (the daughter of an old 
gentleman sitting near me) intimated through him 
that she would like me to go up and help her to 
materialise the white veil which all in turn wore, 
and which, though perfectly transparent, is con- 
sidered a necessary shield between them and the 
earth's influences ; on the same principle, I suppose, 
that we put on blue spectacles to protect us from 
the blinding rays of the sun. 

She came out from the alcove, held both her hands 



22 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

in front of her, turning them backward and for- 
ward that I might be satisfied that nothing was 
concealed in them. The soft, cHnging material of 
her gown ended high up on the shoulders, so there 
were no sleeves to be reckoned with. I stood close 
over her, holding out my own dress, and as she 
rubbed her hands to and fro a sort of white lace 
or net came from them, like a foam, and lay upon 
my gown which I was holding up towards her. 

I touched this material, and held it in my hands. 
It had substance, but was light as gossamer, and 
quite unlike any stuff I ever saw in a shop. 

The very softest gossamer tulle that old ladies 
sometimes produce as having belonged to their 
grandmothers is perhaps the nearest approach to 
what I then lifted in my hands, but even this does 
not accurately describe it. 

When long enough she took up the veil, unfolded 
it, covering her head with it, and saying very graci- 
ously " Thank you " to me. 

Other spirits now appeared for the other people 
in the room, who conversed with them in low tones. 

All these had evidently materialised before and 
could consequently speak with comparative ease. 
One, called the " Angel Mother " (the mother of 
the medium), answered questions on the spirit life 
in a loud American voice, prefacing every remark, 
whether to man or woman, by an affectionate 
" Well, de-ar ! " Her answers showed considerable 
shrewdness, but not much depth, and were often 
rather wide of the mark. 

*' Nels Seymour " (who appears to have belonged 
to a sort of Christy Minstrel Company over here) 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 23 

cracked jokes all the time with a gentleman amongst 
the audience in a good-natured but flippant and 
very unspiritual manner, and even the ladies joined 
in the undignified punning and " play upon words " 
that went on all the time. 

The little child's voice came in as a relief every 
now and then. She spoke broken, childish English, 
but used the expressions of a grown-up person. She 
described several spirits as " chying " (trying) to 
come, but not being strong enough. 

I was becoming drowsy, and rather tired of the 
performance, when my attention was once more 
aroused by hearing that a very beautiful female 
spirit, with a diamond star in her forehead, had 
appeared and asked for me, saying she had been 
a friend of mine on earth, and wished to communicate 
with me. 

This was conveyed to me by the little child's 
voice, the spirit herself not having yet emerged from 
the curtain ; but the medium's husband looked 
behind it, and told me of the diamond star, which 
he said was some " order " in spirit life. 

Having no idea who the friend might be, I begged 
for some further particulars before going up to 
speak to her. 

" She passed from earth life about five years ago, 
and in Germany," answered the medium's husband, 
who had conducted the conversation behind the 
curtain. 

This was less vague, and now for the first time 
a suspicion of the spirit's identity crossed my mind ; 
but I would not go up until a name had been given, 
and I asked for this before leaving my seat. 



24 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

My travelling companion — a recent acquaintance 
— had never heard me mention the lady in question, 
who had died in Germany at the time specified. The 
little child said the spirit would give the name 
through her, and the process was a curious one. 
Instead of mentioning the whole name or each letter 
of it to her father, the child described each letter 
, to him as you might describe the lines of the large 
capitals in a child's reading-book. The father 
guessed the letter from the child's description, and 
asked me if the first one were correct ? It was ; 
but I did not tell him so, merely saying I should 
like to have the Christian name in full before giving 
any opinion. 

In due time the six letters (Muriel, we will call it) 
were correctly given, and I had then no further 
excuse for refusing to speak to the spirit. 

I went up to the curtain, and she appeared in front 
of it. I have been frequently asked : " Should you 
have recognised her as your friend had no name 
been given ? " With every wish to be perfectly 
truthful, I find it difficult to answer this question, 
for the following reason : — None of the "materiali- 
sations " I saw were exactly human in face. There 
was no idea of a mask or clever " get up," but if one 
could accept the theory of a body hastily put to- 
gether and assumed for a time, the result is exactly 
what might have been expected under the circum- 
stances. 

My friend in real life was very pale, and had 
exquisitely chiselled features, and the ones I now 
looked upon were of the same cast. The height was 
also similar, and an indescribable atmosphere of 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 25 

refinement, purity, and quiet dignity, for which she 
had been remarkable ; all this was present with 
this materialisation. More than this I cannot say, 
for no materialisation I have ever seen could be 
truthfully considered identical with the human 
original. 

I did not feel frightened, but I did feel embarrassed, 
and naturally so, considering how unwilling and 
grudging my recognition of her individuality must 
have appeared. She seemed conscious of this, for 
almost immediately she mentioned her hands, 
holding them out for inspection, and saying : 

" Don't you remember my hands ? I was so 
proud of my hands ! " 

Now, as a matter of fact, my friend was noted for 
her beautiful hands, but she was too sensible and 
clever a woman to have been conceited about them, 
and had too much good taste ever to have made 
their beauty a subject of remark, even to an intimate 
friend. 

Moreover, the hands now en evidence, although 
well shaped and with tapering fingers, were as little 
identical with a human hand as the face was identical 
with a human face. 

Casting about for something to say to her, my 
first thought was for an only and dearly loved 
married sister of hers, also a friend of mine, and I 
mentioned the latter in a guarded way, saying : 
" If you are in reality my friend, have you no 
message for your sister ? " 

In a moment, and without the slightest hesitation, 
she said : " Tell poor Jessie,"" going on with a 
message peculiarly appropriate to the facts of the 



26 , SEEN AND UNSEEN 

case, but of much too private a nature for publi- 
cation. 

Almost immediately afterwards, and with no shadow 
of suggestion from me, she added : 

" Poor Jessie ! She suffered terribly when I passed 
away so suddenly. ^^ 

My friend had died in a foreign country, under 
peculiarly sad circumstances. She was young, 
beautiful, and accomplished ; a prominent local 
figure in the well-known capital where she had 
spent several winters. Her death was so sudden 
that there was not even time to put off a large 
afternoon " At Home " arranged for that day. 
Moreover, this sister, by a most merciful chance, 
happened to be spending a few months with her, 
out of England, at the time. These were all special 
facts, spontaneously referred to by her, but which 
would not have applied equally well to the death of 
any other friend, even supposing such a death to 
have occurred abroad. 

The spirit spoke feebly and with difficulty, " not 
having much strength," she told me. 

I asked if her father (who had died a few months 
previously) were with her. 

" Not yet," she said gently ; " but I know that he 
has passed over." She then kissed my hand, and 
faded away before my eyes, not apparently re- 
turning to the curtain (close to which I stood), but 
vanishing into thin air. 

Some ten days later my friend and I went again 
to an evening seance at the same house, different 
people being present on this occasion. A stupid, 
" unintelligent sceptic " woman put us all out of 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 27 

harmony by making inane suggestions, always de- 
claring that " she would not for the world interfere 
with the conditions,''^ but doing so all the same. The 
'* Angel Mother " came again, and rather lost her 
temper, I thought, with an aggravating, illogical 
man in the circle, who hammered away about 
Faraday's opinions on the spirit world without 
much idea of what he was talking about. " Nels 
Seymour " appeared, as well as spoke, this time. 
He took my hand and kissed it ; but he does not 
leave the cabinet, as he is the " control." It was 
eleven years on this day since he had " passed 
over," so he called it his " birthday." 

A very beautiful female spirit materialised and 
offered to sit on my lap ; an offer I closed with at 
once. 

She was some five feet eight inches in height, 
and a large, well-developed woman. Anticipating 
the possibility of her resting her feet on the ground, 
and so concealing her real weight, I moved my own 
feet from the ground the moment she sat down, 
which was easily done, as my chair was a high one. 

She remained for several minutes in this position, 
resting, of necessity, her whole weight upon me, 
which was about equal to that of a small kitten or 
a lady's muff, in the days when small muffs were in 
fashion. There was an appreciable weight, but I have 
never nursed any baby that was not far heavier. 

The veil this time was materialised in the usual 
way, my friend going up to watch the process. 

My spirit friend appeared again, and more strongly 
this time. At a public seance, where so many are 
eager to communicate with their friends, it is im- 



28 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

possible to monopolise more than a few minutes 
of the public time, and consequently any commimi- 
cations are as hurried and unsatisfactory as a con- 
versation with an intimate friend in the public 
reading-room of a hotel would be. 

I pass over another most excellent and evidential 
incident as a concession to family prejudice. It has 
already appeared in my book on America entitled 
" A Year in the Great Republic," and may be found 
there. 

At a third materialising seance at the same house 
an excitable Italian friend of mine, who had never 
seen anything of the kind before, came with much 
the same prejudices as I had felt at the Boston 
seance, and disturbed the conditions very much by 
his attitude of determined antagonism ; whilst his 
comparative ignorance of English, and my feeble 
Italian, made explanations, under the circumstances, 
rather hopeless. The whole circle was put out of 
harmony, and a dead weight lay upon us all. The 
materialisations continued, it is true ; but personally 
it was a great relief to me when my excitable friend 
left, declaring that everything he had seen was 
" physiquement impossible mon ange.'^ 

He departed so abruptly as to bring down much 
abuse upon his absent head for having " broken the 
battery " and almost " killed the medium " by his 
sudden disappearance from the circle. 

This awful threat had so much power over the rest 
of the party that we sat out to the bitter end, leaving 
the medium at last still in her trance, with husband 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 29 

and son hovering over her in an anxiety which, if 
acted, showed first-class dramatic power. 

Meanwhile I had made the acquaintance of a 
very beautiful and charming woman in New York, 
to whom I had brought a letter of introduction. 

She has had a tragic and remarkable history ; is 
a woman of great mental powers, in addition to very 
remarkable beauty ; and is of the highest rank, being 
an Austrian princess, I beUeve, in her own right, and 
having spent her youth in foreign courts. 

Apart from these facts, which had been told me 
by a mutual friend before we met, I knew nothing 
whatever of her family history, nor whether she 
had brothers or sisters, alive or dead. 

I had spoken to her of my curious experiences, 
and she had discussed the matter with me from the 
standpoint of a thorough woman of the world, of 
strong mental power, who had seen too much of 
life to be dogmatic or narrow in her views, but too 
much also to believe in what is called the " super- 
natural," before every possible natural hypothesis 
had been admitted and dismissed as untenable. 

Sitting in her pretty room the day before I left 
New York, we had talked for some two hours on 
various subjects connected with life and literature, 
and before the final " adieux " she said laughingly : 
" Well, have you been to any more seances ? " 

I said " No," and that we did not intend to do so, 
as our time was now so short. A few moments of 
careless talk on the subject ensued, and picking up 
a newspaper, I cast my eye over the usual list of 
mediums, clairvoyants, etc. A half-defined wish to 
see whether any spirit friend would come to me 



30 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

under totally different conditions and surroundings, 
and in an entirely different quarter of the city, led to 
my copying out one of the addresses at haphazard. 

I could not prevail upon my hostess to accompany 
me (she is dehcate, and dreads night air), but I took 
the slip of paper to my hotel, thinking that my 
friend there might care to take the cars after dinner 
to this distant end of the city. 

My English companion proved rather indifferent 
and disinclined towards the expedition. 

This was very natural. She was not magnetic 
in temperament, and had no expectation of seeing 
any of her own friends, although, of course, she had 
both seen and spoken to those who came for me. 

However, a good dinner at the excellent Windsor 
Hotel fortified us so much after our fatigues that at 
the last moment we agreed to make one more at- 
tempt, no one, ourselves included, having known five 
minutes previously that we should leave the house. 

On this occasion we were ushered into a much 
more imposing drawing-room, and the lady herself 
was evidently some degrees higher in the social 
scale than our first mediumistic friend. 

The arrangements also were quite different. As 
we sat waiting for a few minutes (having arrived 
very punctually), Mrs Gray looked at my friend, and 
then described an elderly lady with grey hair who 
was standing over her, but, of course, invisible to 
our eyes. Almost immediately Mrs Gray began 
rubbing her knees, and complained of pain iirthem, 
adding : " The impression of dropsy is being conveyed 
to me. This spirit seems to have suffered from 
disease of that nature." 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 31 

[- My friend — who was very self-contained and un- 
emotional — gave no clue to the fact that she recog- 
nised anyone by this description, but as we were 
returning home in the cars she said quietly : " It 
is curious Mrs Gray should have described that old 
lady with grey hair — I suppose she meant my 
mother. She had grey hair, and died of dropsy." 

On my expostulating with this lady for having 
given the impression that she did not recognise the 
description at the time she said, with conscious 
pride : " You don't suppose I was going to let 
the woman know that she had described my 
mother ? " 

To give a false impression in so good a cause as 
determined incredulity, seems not only justifiable, 
but actually praiseworthy to many minds. 

Later in the evening, the seance being in full 
swing, a spirit dressed in some kind of white 
" sister's " dress appeared at the door of the cabinet ; 
and Mrs Stoddart Gray asked if anyone in the circle 
could speak German, as this spirit did not seem to 
understand French, Italian, or English, and she 
herself only recognised German by the sound. 

A gentleman volunteered his assistance, but ap- 
parently without much effect, and being a German 
scholar, I then offered to come to the rescue. The 
moment I went up to the figure she seemed to gain 
strength, and came quite out of the cabinet, and 
said to me in the most refined German (any readers 
who have studied the language know that there is 
as wide a difference between the highest and lowest 
type of German accent as between an educated 
Irish " accent " and an Irish brogue) : 



32 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

" Ich bin die schwester von Madame Schewitsch,'^ 
mentioning the name of the foreign friend with 
whom I had been spending that afternoon : " Ich 
weisz das Sie Heute Nach mittag hei meiner schwester 
war en.'''' ^ 

She had evidently a strong, almost overwhelming 
desire to make some communication to me for her 
sister, but the difficulty in doing so seemed equally 
strong. 

It lay beyond the question of language. She 
spoke with sufficient strength, and I could understand 
perfectly her well-chosen and well-pronounced words. 
But some insuperable obstacle seemed to prevent 
her telling me what she wished to convey, and the 
despairing attempt to surmount this was painful in 
the extreme. 

I assured her of my willingness to help in any 
way possible, and made a few suggestions, but all in 
vain. 

" Is it that you are not happy ? " 

" No— no ! That is not it." 

It seemed to me some sort of warning which she 
wished to convey, and had some connection with 
illness, for the words achtung and krankheit (warning 
and illness) were repeated more than once, but no 
definite message came. 

I then asked if she could write it, and she caught 
eagerly at the idea. So I borrowed a pencil and 
some paper, and placed them on a small table in the 
middle of the room, with a chair in front of it. SHe 
came quite close to the table (five gas burners were 

^ Translation : * ' I am the sister of Madame Schewitsch — I know 
that you spent this afternoon with my sister." 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 33 

more than half turned on, so there was plenty of 
light), sat down, and took up the pencil, but almost 
immediately threw it down again, saying in a most 
unhappy and despairing voice : " Nein ! nein ! 
Ich kann es selhst nicht schreiben / " ^ and vanished 
before my very eyes as she rose from the table. 
Now had this been a case of fraud, and supposing 
that some woman had means of discovering the 
name of my New York friend and the fact of my 
having spent that very afternoon with her, what 
would have been easier than to write or give some 
commonplace message in a language of which she 
had already proved herself mistress ? 

The episode was so painful that I decided not to 
write to Madame Schewitsch about it. I have 
therefore no absolute corroboration of the fact that 
the lady mentioned had a sister who became a nun, 
or who was connected with some such establishment, 
and had passed over. This, however, is much more 
probable than not, because in every high-born 
Catholic family in Austria, one member in a large 
family almost invariably takes the veil. I have 
given the real name in this case, hoping Madame 
Schewitsch may perchance come across my book, 
and supply the information needed. I may remark, 
finally, that three or four months later, whilst 
travelling in California, I heard from my excitable 
and sceptical Italian friend (who had given me the 
introduction to Madame Schewitsch) that this lady 
had had a long and most serious illness during 
my absence in the West, and that her husband 
and he had both feared she would never recover 

^ Translation : " No ! no ! I cannot even write it ! " 



34 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

from it. This fear, fortunately, proved to be 
groundless. 

To return to the sitting. 

About twenty minutes after the " sister '*' had dis- 
appeared, a figure in white came forward very swiftly, 
and without a moment's hesitation pointed towards 
me, saying quickly : " For youP 

I went up at once, recognising who it was, but 
determined to give no sign of this fact. 

The " spirit " looked at me for a moment with 
surprise, as one might look at any well-known 
friend who passed us in the street without a greeting. 

As I remained silent she whispered : " Don't you 
know me ? " I am afraid 1 gave the false impression 
this time, and asked her for her name. 

" Why, I am Muriel ! '"* came the instant answer, 
mentioning the name of the first friend who had 
appeared to me, after spelling out her name, at the 
previous seances held in another part of New York. 

On this third appearance my spirit friend asked 
me to kiss her. I must confess that I complied 
with some amount of trepidation, which proved to 
be quite unnecessary. 

There was nothing the least repulsive to the touch, 
although it was not exactly like kissing anyone on 
earth ; but an indescribable atmosphere of fresh- 
ness and purity, which seemed always to surround 
this friend whilst living, was very apparent imder 
these changed conditions. Another curious little 
point is that I had entirely forgotten my friend's 
love of violets (she always wore them when possible, 
and used violet scent) until I smelt them distinctly 
whilst speaking to her. 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 35 

It must be remembered that until the day of the 
sitting, we had never dreamed of going to Mrs Gray's 
house, nor had we even heard her name. I picked 
it out of a newspaper by chance — amongst at least 
thirty others. 

Until past seven o'clock that evening we had not 
decided to visit her, and the seance began at eight 
P.M., no single person in the room being present 
who had been at the house of the other medium 
some weeks previously. Under these circumstances 
it would be difficult to account for the fact of my 
friend's reappearance on the ground of collusion 
between the two mediums. Moreover, such col- 
lusion would not account for the appearance earlier 
in the evening of a spirit claiming to be the sister 
of Madame Schewitsch. 

No one hitherto has been able to suggest any 
intelligent explanation of my personal experiences 
on these occasions. Conjuring tricks and trap doors 
are, of course, " trotted out " by the unintelligent 
sceptic, but these do not meet the difficulty of an 
accurate knowledge of names and of family matters 
of comparatively small importance. 

As I am just now chiefly concerned with pre- 
senting incidents in my life rather than in prosing 
over them, I resist the temptation to go further into 
the question of Materialisations either from the 
historical or ethical point of view, and pass on to the 
subject of clairvoyance. 



CHAPTER II — continued 

INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 

In speaking of clairvoyance I shall again have 
recourse to my notes taken at the time of my 
American visit and on the spot. 

I am quite convinced that where a life has been in 
any way eventful or at all marked, any fairly de- 
veloped claiivoyant can in some way " sense " your 
mental and moral atmosphere. 

In some three or four personal cases, the notes 
taken at the time of such visits, paid several thou- 
sands of miles apart, might almost be read as de- 
scriptive of the same interview, with different wit- 
nesses. 

My travelling companion, who had led a very 
uneventful life, seemed to puzzle them much more. 
There was apparently nothing to lay hold of, and 
only a very shadowy, indistinct picture was given in 
consequence. 

In my own case the colours were put on freely, 
firmly, and without the least hesitation, and in every 
single instance the sketch was remarkably truthful, 
and yet would not have described the life of one 
other woman in three or four hundred. 

That there is a good deal of guesswork done even 
under the supposed influence of " trance " is quite 
evident to me. I am not prepared to say that such 

36 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 37 

trances were in no case genuine, but the remarks 
made during them were frequently of a tentative 
nature, and the shghtest good " hit " was followed 
up with as much ingenuity as Sir Richard Owen 
displayed in putting together his skeleton from a 
single bone. 

I was told some six or seven times that my mother 
(who died during my infancy) was my guardian 
spirit, and six times her name was given to me, 
with some difficulty in one or two cases, but in- 
variably without the smallest guessing on the part 
of the clairvoyant or any hint from me. 

One of my most successful interviews in New York 
was with a Mrs Parks of Philadelphia — a very 
pleasant, good-looking, healthy woman, quite unlike 
the usual cadaverous medium with whom one is 
more familiar. 

Her terms being rather higher than those usually 
asked in America (where competition has made 
mediums a cheap luxury), I demurred at first ; upon 
which she said brightly : " Well, don't come if you 
don't feel Hke paying that ; but I never alter my 
prices. But I won't take your money if I don't 
give you satisfaction. Some get satisfaction from 
one person and some from another — you will soon 
see if I am telling you the truth about your friends, 
and I won't take a penny from you if you are dis- 
satisfied." 

I left the house saying I would think it over, and 
Mrs Parks did not at all press me to come, and from 
my manner could hardly have expected to see me. 

I had a most satisfactory interview with her next 
day. 



38 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

After referring to my mother's presence, and giving 
her name without any hesitation, she gave me 
several messages with regard to character which 
were singularly appropriate, and finished up by 
saying : " Your mother does not wish you to go to 
mediums or mix yourself too much up with such 
persons. It is not necessary for you to do so ; she 
says you have enough mediumistic power for her 
to be able to communicate with you directly." 

I could not help saying : " Well, Mrs Parks, you 
are going very much against your own interests in 
giving me this message. I am a perfect stranger 
to you in this city. I have told you that I am 
making some little stay here, and as you have given 
me so much satisfaction I might have been induced 
to come and see you several times again before 
leaving." 

She laughed, and answered : " That is quite true ; 
but I am an honest woman, and I am bound to give 
you the message that is given to me for you, even 
when it goes against my interest." 

Seeing her bright, pleasant home, with every 
trace of comfort about it, and having received 
personal proof that money alone was not her con- 
sideration, I could not help asking why she con- 
tinued such an arduous life. 

" Well," she answered, " the truth is that I do 
it now against my own wish. My husband has 
always objected to it more or less. He was afraid 
it might injure my health, and for two years I gave 
it up entirely. But," she added, '' the spirits would 
not leave me alone. It seemed as if I had to come 
back to it, as if I were refusing to use the powers 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 39 

that had been given to me for the help and comfort 
of my fellow-creatures. I name a higher price than 
others, to limit my work and to keep away those 
who would only come from idle curiosity." She 
also told me that sometimes she had to give orders 
beforehand that certain people should not be ad- 
mitted on any pretext whatever. " I can see their 
spirits round them before they reach the door very 
often, and I would not have such people, bringing 
such an atmosphere into my house — no, not if they 
gave me a hundred dollars for each sitting." 

I must mention one more incident connected with 
this period of my investigations, because it throws 
a strong light on some obscure problems. 

Whilst consulting these clairvoyants, in widely 
different parts of America, two very near relatives 
of mine were almost invariably described, and the 
names — one male and one female — were generally 
given. The mediums invariably went on to say 
that the female spirit was further on in development 
than the male spirit. Now there were circumstances 
which made this statement, viewed from this world's 
standpoint, not only absolutely mistaken, but al- 
most ludicrously so. The woman's nature had been 
a far more faulty one — more impetuous, less bal- 
anced, and so forth. The male spirit described had 
been a man of very exceptional character and 
spirituality, whilst on earth. 

In spite of these facts the same " mistake," as I 
considered it, had consistently been made by every 
clairvoyant who described them ; which, by-the-by, 
rules out telepathy as an explanation of these 
special experiences. It certainly seemed strange that 



40 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

after giving accurate descriptions of the two re- 
latives referred to — names included — each clair- 
voyant should make exactly the same mistake upon 
so obvious a matter as the question involved. 

Some months later, in the course of my travels, 
I found myself at Denver in Colorado. We stayed 
here, at first, one day only, to break our journey 
farther up into the Rocky Mountains. The previous 
day, when wandering about Colorado Springs, my 
friend and I had come across a lady doctor by 
chance ; and having asked some trivial question, 
we were invited into her pretty little house, where 
we chatted for half-an-hour on various subjects — 
including spiritualism. We gave no account of our 
experiences, but simply mentioned the fact that we 
had some interest in the investigation. 

Hearing this, and that we were going on to Denver 
next day, this lady gave me the address of a young 
married friend who lived in that city, and who had 
during the previous two years suddenly developed 
strong mediumistic power, but was in no way a 
professional. She begged us to call if possible, 
and I took down the address, but said it was very 
doubtful if we could do so in the short time we 
should have at our disposal. 

At the end of a long afternoon's drive to the most 
interesting points of view in Denver, we found 
ourselves close to the quarter where this young 
woman lived, and called at the house mentioned. 
The lady was not at home, and a friend who re- 
ceived us explained that it would be impossible for 
her to come down in the evening to see us, as she 
was delicate, and not allowed to go out at night. 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 41 

As we were leaving Denver early next morning, 
this made a meeting impossible, so we left our cards, 
and a note to explain our visit. Going into the 
hotel office after dinner that evening, I heard a 
gentleman inquiring for me by name, saying he had 
brought his wife to see me. I explained that I was 
the lady he asked for, and he then said, with the 
stoical resignation of the typical American husband : 
" I did not like her to come out, but she was bound 
to have her own way." 

The lady in question came into my bedroom up- 
stairs after dismissing her husband, and said she 
" preferred a room already permeated by my in- 
fluence." She then continued very simply : "I 
do not know whether I shall be able to help you at 
all, but it seems there is something I have to tell 
you or explain. When I read your note I felt 
bound to come, although my husband tried to dis- 
suade me. It seemed to me as if the spirits came 
all the way with me in the cars." 

She then gave me quite a good sitting, but on the 
ordinary lines, ending up by the description of the 
relatives mentioned, and by making the usual 
" mistake " about their relative spiritual positions. 

This was all said in trance. When she returned 
to consciousness I said: *'Now, Mrs Brown (her 
real name), I must tell you honestly that you 
have made one cardinal mistake, but I am also 
bound to say that five or six professional mediums 
have done just the same as regards the same 
matter." I then explained, and asked if she could 
account for such a persistent and obvious mis- 
conception. 



42 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

" Wait a moment," she answered ; " perhaps the 
spirits will tell me." 

She looked up with a very intent expression for 
a minute, as though listening to some explanation 
which did not cover the ground of her own ex- 
perience, and then said very quickly and in a 
monotonous voice, as though repeating a verbal 
message : 

" It has nothing exactly to do with our earthly 
idea of ' goodness.' Spiritual life can only come 
to those prepared for it, within the limits of their 
capacity. The male spirit you mention was a 
clergyman of the Church of England. He was a 
very holy man, but he was in some way creed bound. 
He was a man of strong creed ; he clung to his 
creed here, and cannot quite free himself from it even 
now, although he has advanced very much in 
spiritual perception. Now his wife had a very 
sympathetic, apprehending nature. She can there- 
fore receive spiritual light more fully and freely. 
That is why she has risen to a higher plane. This 
is not a question of character so much as of spiritual 
capacity, and in this she is the more highly gifted 
of the two. She is on a different plane, but she is 
able to help her husband very much, and in time he 
will join her, and they will progress together." 

All this was said in a quick, decided way, and 
without the smallest hesitation. 

One would hardly have expected a youngs woman 
in the midst of the Rocky Mountains to know the 
exact meaning of the term " clergyman of the Church 
of England, "^^ for the word is almost unknown in 
America, where they speak invariably of a minister. 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 43 

Yet the words were given with quick, firm precision, 
exactly as written down. 

Later, in San Francisco, a clairvoyant at once 
referred to my friend *' Muriel," and described her, 
but in rather vague terms. When I pointed this 
fact out she said a little impatiently, as though we 
were wasting time in quibbling : ''Oh, well, it does 
not matter. The spirit tells me you know perfectly 
well who it is. She has already appeared to you in 
New York:' 

I had gone to this particular medium with several 
young friends, who were all in a very sceptical and 
rather frivolous state of mind. She described " an 
uncle," apparently over the heads of two of my 
friends, and gave the further information that he 
was surrounded by water, and appeared to have been 
drowned ; also that he was extremely musical. 

This was declared to be perfectly untrue and 
without a grain of foundation, in fact. 

The woman looked puzzled and a little mortified, 
but turned to others in the circle, with better success, 
let us hope ! 

On our return home, when the young people were 
telling their mother of the " awful humbug " amid 
shouts of laughter, the mother said quietly : " But 
surely you remember, my dear children, hearing of 
your Uncle Robert, who was drowned years ago, 
before any of you were bom ? He was a great 
musician. He wanted to give up his life to art, but 
he was persuaded to take up another profession." 

I give this as an instance of the carelessness with 
which, when we are determined to find fraud, we may 



44 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

do so sometimes at the expense of truth. These 
young girls had doubtless heard of their uncle, but 
the fact had possibly escaped their memories for the 
moment, and probably they had no wish to recall 
anything which could cast a doubt on their precon- 
ceived notion that " the whole thing was a swindle ! " 

Before closing the chapter of my American ex- 
periences in the years 1885 and 1886, I must give 
one more personal detail. 

When investigating various clairvoyants in the 
Eastern States in March and April of the year 1886, 
I had been told more than once that a guardian band 
of six spirits was forming round me, and would be 
later supplemented by another band of six pro- 
tectors. Whether this had any bearing upon the 
following incident, I must leave my readers to decide. 

About three months after this pronouncement I 
found myself at Victoria, Vancouver's Island. Miss 
Greenlow and I had gone there from San Francisco 
for a week or two, not being able at that time to 
make the further trip to Alaska. After a very 
stormy voyage of two or three days we reached 
Victoria one morning about six a.m. There was only 
one large double-bedded room available at the 
hotel, and we took this on the understanding that 
two separate rooms should be found for us before 
the evening. 

As we lay on our beds for a few hours of much 
needed rest, quite suddenly I reaUsed that I saw 
something abnormal in the air — just above and in 
front of my head. I mentioned this with much 
surprise to my companion, who at once suggested 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 45 

the effects of liver after a sea voyage so tempestuous 
as ours had been. For the first few moments I was 
inclined to agree with her, and said so ; but very 
shortly my opinion was altered by the fact that what 
I saw first as an indistinct blur gradually assumed 
a definite shape, and I then found there were six 
little swallows in front of me, apparently connected 
with each other by a waving ribbon, or so it ap- 
peared to me. 

Opening and shutting one's eyes did not affect 
the vision. There they remained, both at the 
moment and for several succeeding years, during 
which time I was constantly in the habit of seeing 
" my birds, ^^ as we used to call them. About six 
months after their first appearance in the pure, 
clear atmosphere of Victoria (Vancouver), I was 
driving across the Blackheath Common on a very 
bright, frosty day, and looking out of the open 
window of my carriage, I saw my six birds as usual ; 
but for the first time, parallel with them and lower 
down, were six new birds of just the same size and 
appearance (about half-an-inch between the tips of 
the wings). 

A few days later the new birds and the old ones 
had amalgamated, and twelve little swallows floated 
in the air before my eyes. I could not see them in 
the house. It needed the background of unin- 
terrupted sky apparently to throw them into 
sufficient relief to be recognised. After some years, 
this special sign was withdrawn, and others have 
taken its place. For example, I have seen in the 
same way, during the last fourteen years, an anchor, 
with the chain attached to it, and caught through 



46 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

one end of the former, a short reaping hook. This, 
doubtless, has some symboHcal meaning. Near the 
anchor I see a sacrificial altar, with flames rising 
up from it ; then a triangle, with loops at the 
corners, which I was once told was the sign of 
Nostradamus. Then an old-fashioned mirror in a 
quaintly - shaped frame, and finally a long staff, 
with the sign of Aries at one end. I have since 
realised that this is very much like the " Staff of 
Faith " found on the top of many of the tombs in 
the Roman catacombs. All these latter emblems 
come together as a rule, with a connecting thread 
binding them to each other. I cannot see them at 
will, but when the atmosphere is at all clear they 
are rarely absent, when I have time to look for 
them. I was much amused once by an earnest 
Christian scientist, with whom I happened to be 
spending a few days on the coast of the eastern 
counties. She had warned me repeatedly against 
" phenomena " of every kind, spontaneous or in- 
duced. On a specially bright morning we were 
sitting together in a beautiful park, which is thrown 
open to strangers on special days, and, forgetting 
my companion's prejudices, I exclaimed involun- 
tarily : 

" I never saw my signs more clearly than just 
now ! — there must be something very pure about 
the atmosphere." 

This was too much for my friend, who bent for- 
ward eagerly, saying : — " Do let me try if I cannot 
see them too ! '' 

Well, she " tried "' for the greater part of two 
hours, but absolutely in vain, and then got up, and 



INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886 47 

suggested going home to luncheon. She added 
naively : "I thought they must have something 
wrong about them, and I am quite sure of it now, 
or I should have seen them.^'' 

But it had taken her two hours of failure to be 
absolutely convinced that they came straight from 
the devil ! 

One sign — also birds — appeared to me on one 
occasion only. We had returned to Denver, where 
Miss Greenlow and I were to separate after a year's 
constant travel together. She was going back to 
San Francisco to take steamer for the Sandwich 
Islands, and thence on to Australia ; whilst I was 
returning to England for family reasons. 

I had arranged to dine with the hospitable Dean 
of Denver the evening of the day of her departure, 
and I had not realised how much less lonely one 
would have felt had my journey East corresponded 
more closely with her journey West, especially as 
she was obliged to leave the hotel about nine o'clock 
in the morning. 

Waking early, and lying in bed, feeling very 
melancholy at the idea of being left behind and 
alone in the very centre of America, I looked up, and, 
to my delight, saw a new sign. 

Not my little birds this time, but two big, plump 
father and mother birds, with a short string at- 
tached, not horizontally as before, but perpendi- 
cularly. At the end of this little string was a tiny 
bird, even smaller than the swallows, being evidently 
guided by the two big birds, and quite safe in their 
charge. 

My room communicated with that of my com- 



48 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

panion, whose door was open, and I told her of this 
new " sign in the heavens," adding that I hoped it 
had come to stay. Fortunately, I found a pencil, 
and made a rough sketch at the time, or I might have 
been tempted to imagine that I had never seen it 
at all, for the trio never appeared again, though 
I have longed to see them, and have certainly re- 
quired the consolation quite as much, many times, 
since that far-away summer morning in Denver, 
Colorado. 

On reaching home after this long American trip, 
I found a budget of letters awaiting me — amongst 
them a little registered box containing a kind birth- 
day present from the brother who has been men- 
tioned in the Introduction to this book. Was it 
another case of mental affinity which had induced 
him unconsciously to choose a gold brooch with 
two swallows in gold and pearls ? Not an uncommon 
design ; but the birds were exactly the same size as 
those I was in the habit of seeing just at that time. 

I never told him how extraordinarily a propos his 
present had proved, but I have always looked upon 
that brooch as a mascot, and have certainly worn it 
every day since it came into my possession. 



CHAPTER III 

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 

Shortly after the Jubilee of 1887 had taken place, 
I sailed for Austraha and New Zealand. 

My first psychic experience in the Colonies took 
place in Melbourne, some months after my landing 
in Tasmania. 

The wife of one of the " prominent citizens " in 
Melbourne had been specially invited to meet me 
at an afternoon reception in the house of friends to 
whom I had carried letters of introduction, as she 
was said to be so deeply interested in everything 
psychic, and would greatly enjoy hearing my 
American experiences. Fortunately, the lady arrived 
late, and we had already enjoyed some interesting 
conversation before she came. A wetter " wet 
blanket " it has never been my fortune to encounter. 
She was a very handsome woman, and therefore 
good to look at, but in the role of sympathetic 
audience she was a miserable failure. She sat with 
a cold, glassy eye fixed upon me, whilst I en- 
deavoured to continue the conversation which had 
been interrupted by her arrival. 

She might just as well have said as have looked 
the words : " Now go on making a fool of your- 
self ! — that is just what I have come to see." 

The position was hopeless So I began to talk 

D 49 



50 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

about the weather, which is disagreeable enough 
from sirocco in the hot spring months (it was the end 
of October) to be useful. 

Presently the daughter of the house came up to 
me, and said : 

" Do, please, go on telling us your interesting ex- 
periences. Miss Bates ; we can talk about other 
things at any time, and we asked Mrs Burroughes 
on purpose to meet you." 

The lady in question had joined another group 
by this time, so I was able to whisper in reply : 
" I am so very sorry, but I cannot possibly talk of 
these things before your friend — she paralyses me 
absolutely from any psychic point of view. She 
is very handsome, and I like looking at her, but I 
cannot talk to her except about the weather." 

" How very odd ! " was the unexpected reply. 
" That is just what Lizzie Maynard says. And I 
did very much want Lizzie to hear about America 
too, but she has gone off to the other end of the 
room, saying she knows you won't be able to talk 
whilst Mrs Burroughes is here." 

This was interesting, for I had not noticed the 
young girl mentioned, who had not been intro- 
duced to me. So when my young hostess asked 
" if she might bring Lizzie to see me at my hotel 
next day," I gladly acquiesced, in spite of feeling 
very far from well at the moment. 

This feeling of malaise increased in the night, 
and was, in fact, the precursor of a short but sharp 
attack of a form of typhoid which was running 
through the hotel at the time. Being in bed next 
afternoon about four o'clock, I was dismayed to 



AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 51 

hear that Miss Maynard had arrived to see me, 
and, moreover, had arrived alone. I had never 
spoken to the girl nor even consciously set eyes on 
her before, but I knew she must have come at least 
three miles from the suburb where she lived, and 
would probably refuse to have a cup of tea down- 
stairs during my absence. There was nothing for 
it, therefore, but to make an effort, order tea to be 
brought for her to my room, and send a message 
hoping she would not mind seeing me in my bed- 
room. 

She came up — a modest, charming-looking girl 
of about twenty. I explained the circumstances, 
and apologised for being unable to join in the tea- 
party, but felt rather desperate when I realised 
that even the effort of taking any share in the 
conversation was beyond me. 

Suddenly a brilliant idea passed through my 
throbbing head. The day before, in planning 
the visit, which Miss Boyle had been unable 
to carry out herself, she had mentioned that 
her friend Lizzie Maynard was a very good auto- 
matic writer, and this seemed a solution of the 
difficulty. 

So when my little friend had finished her tea, but 
was still looking tired from the long walk, I said 
to her : "I am so sorry to be so stupid to-day, Miss 
Maynard. I cannot talk, but I can listen ; or do you 
think possibly you could get a little writing for me ? 
Miss Boyle told me you wrote automatically some- 
times ? " 

" I will try, certainly," was the ready response. 
*' I never know, of course, what may come, and as 



52 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

this is our first meeting, it may be a little more 
difficult, but I should Hke to try." 

She found paper and pencil, and sat by my bed- 
side, holding the pencil very loosely between the 
second and third fingers, instead of between the 
thumb and first two fingers in the usual way. 

She continued talking to me during the whole 
time, and not being well versed in automatic 
writing then, I could not believe that any writ- 
ing could really be going on in this very casual 
sort of way. 

" Is any writing really coming ? " I questioned at 
last. 

" Oh yes ; but I can't make out the last long 
word," she said, turning the paper round, so that 
she could see it, for the first time. " Kindly give me 
that word again," she remarked casually, and con- 
tinued her conversation with me. 

Finally the three or four sheets of rather large 
but not always very distinct caligraphy were sub- 
mitted to me, and I saw that " Miscellaneous " had 
been the long word at the beginning which Lizzie 
had asked to have repeated. 

The whole message was intensely interesting to 
me, for it began : " / who on earth was known as 
George Eliot!'^ 

Now I had more than once seen, but had never 
spoken to, George Eliot in earth life, and although 
admiring her genius, as all who read her bopks are 
bound to do, there seemed no very obvious reason 
why she should come to me. Moreover, Lizzie 
Maynard, a charming but not highly educated girl 
(as I discovered later), seemed to know little about 



AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 53 

the famous author beyond her name. Another, and 
infinitely inferior, lady writer had been discussed 
with bated breath the day before in Lizzie's presence. 
Her books — just then in the zenith of their popu- 
larity — had newly penetrated to the Colonies, and 
were being talked of there as though Minerva her- 
self, helmet and all complete, had suddenly arrived 
in Melbourne. I had personally been greatly in- 
terested by one of this lady's earlier books, and had 
a much less definite opinion of the author then, than 
I have at the present moment. 

Threshing my brains for any sort of tie with 
George Eliot, I remembered having often stayed at 
Oxford as a young woman, when Jowett of Balliol 
was entertaining her. and Mr Lewes, in his own 
home. 

Of course, there was no question in those far-away 
days of my being asked to meet such a brilliant star ; 
but it amused me often to hear the dull and un- 
interesting people of some standing in the University, 
whom Jowett had not favoured with an invitation, 
declaring that nothing would have induced them 
to accept it ! 

This was, however, but a feeble link, even when 
added to the righteous indignation one had so 
often experienced on hearing similar remarks made, 
about a woman too far above her critics both in 
genius and morals, for them to be able to catch 
the faintest glimpse of her personality. 

Apparently it only now lay with me to cease 
asking why, and accept the goods provided by the 
gods, making the most of such an opportunity. 
On these occasions so many possible questions 



54 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

tumble over each other in the brain that it is 
difficult to select any one to start with. 

At length I asked the following question : — 

" What did George Eliot think of the author who 
had been so much discussed and so highly applauded 
on the previous afternoon ? " 

Very quickly came the answer : " / have no 
sympathy there — a mere puppet.^^ 

Certainly this was not thought reading ; for my 
own opinion then was very indefinite, and Lizzie's 
views, as it turned out, were as enthusiastic as those 
of most people in the Colony. It was not until 
several years later that I realised that an extra- 
ordinarily apt criticism had been made ; for a 
puppet is made to dance by other entities. 

I was longing to ask another question, but had 
some natural hesitation in doing so before such a 
young girl. Moreover, I feared the answer must 
almost of necessity be coloured by the traditions 
of the latter, and therefore would be of no great 
value either way. But taking my courage " in 
both hands," I put the question : 

" Please ask George Eliot if she now thinks that 
she was justified in the position she took up with 
regard to George Lewes ? " 

The answer came in a flash : " Certainly. We 
are one here, as we were on earth. ''^ 

Anything less likely to emanate from the brain of 
an orthodox young girl can hardly be conceived ! 

Amongst other details, George Eliot said finally 
that she had come to know my mother in spirit 
life, where she was called Stella. Now my 
mother's name in earth life was Ellen, which has 



AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 55 

the same root for its origin. Of course, Miss 
Maynard did not then know whether my mother 
were alive or dead, and nothing naturally concerning 
her Christian name. 

The last statement made by George Eliot on this 
occasion was that " before another year had rolled 
by, a great gift would come to me, and I must be very 
careful to use without abusing it.^^ I was too tired 
at the moment to ask whether " another year 
rolling by " meant a whole year from 28th October 
1887 (the date of the message), or the end of the 
current year — namely, 31st December 1887. 

When the message had come to an end. Miss 
Maynard gathered up the scattered sheets, and 
promising to copy them out for me, took her de- 
parture, and left me to muse — so far as a racking 
brain would allow — on the curious and interesting 
result of her visit. No cup of tea to thirsty way- 
farer was ever surely so grandly rewarded ! 

My next adventure had a distant connection with 
these Australian experiences. 

I had come out to join the friend (Miss Greenlow) 
who had been my companion in America, and who 
had thence sailed for Sydney when I returned for a 
year to England. She had been anxious for me to 
rejoin her in Australia, and from thence visit Japan 
and China ; but my arrival having been delayed by 
literary matters, this lady had finally lost patience, 
and, without my knowledge, had gone on to New 
Zealand, and thence, as it turned out, to Samoa. 
When I heard of the New Zealand episode there 
w-as nothing for it but to follow her there, on a will- 
o'-the-wisp expedition, as it turned out, but, fortun- 



56 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

ately, I was unaware of this at the time. I say 
fortunately, because had I known that she had 
already left Australia for Samoa, I should certainly 
have returned to England, in despair of tracing her 
any further, and thereby one of my most interesting 
experiences would have been lost. 

The illness in Melbourne, already referred to, de- 
tained me for over a fortnight, so it was necessary 
to transfer my New Zealand ticket from one boat 
to another. So the illness also must have been one 
of the factors that was involved in the adventure, 
as I have called it. For the delay led to my meeting 
— in a friend^s house — Mr Arthur Kitchener (a 
younger brother of Lord Kitchener), who was intro- 
duced to me on the special ground that we were to 
be fellow-travellers to New Zealand a day or two 
later. As a matter of fact, Mr Kitchener was on 
his way from England to New Zealand, where he 
was superintending a sheep-run for his father in 
those days. He had come out by P. & O., and 
transhipped at Melbourne after two or three days' 
delay there. 

Several other passengers from the Massilia were 
also going on to New Zealand, and naturally they 
felt like old friends after the five or six weeks already 
spent together. They thought / wanted to be 
alone, and I thought they wanted to be alone, and so 
I kept severely to the upper deck, feeling often 
lonely, and they all remained on the lower deck, 
wishing I would come down and talk to them some- 
times. In spite of these misconceptions on either 
side, Mr Kitchener and I became sufficiently friendly 
for him to give me a very kind and hospitable in- 



AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 57 

vitation to spend the last few days of the year at 
his " station," about nine miles from Dunback, in 
the Dunedin district. I think I must have told him 
of my disappointment in missing my companion in 
Sydney, after travelling so many thousand miles to 
join her, and doubtless he felt some interest in this 
Stanley and Livingstone sort of chase, with two 
women taking the principal characters ! 

Anyway, the invitation was given and accepted, 
and he kindly promised to ask one or two people 
to meet me in his house. 

All this came to pass some weeks later, on my 
return from the New Zealand lakes, and just before 
an expedition to the " Sounds," generally known 
as the " Sounds Trip." 

This is a pleasure trip, organised for early January, 
which is, of course, midsummer there. It lasts for 
ten days, and gives one the opportunity of seeing 
to the best advantage these glorious inlets of the 
sea. 

My week at the sheep station was to precede this, 
as I have explained ; in fact, as the steamer sailed 
late in the afternoon, it was possible to go on board 
without stopping for the night at Dunedin, whence 
we were to sail. But at the last moment a slight 
contretemps took place. Owing to some delay the 
steamer would not be able to leave till Monday, 
instead of the Saturday morning as arranged, and 
our kind host insisted on extending his hospitality 
for the two extra days. 

Now each day there had been some talk about 
having an impromptu seance, and each day I had 
successfully evaded the arrangement. I have a 



58 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

great dislike to sitting in casual circles with strangers, 
and it seemed to me that no good purpose would be 
served by doing so. It is impossible on these oc- 
casions to convince anyone else that you are not 
pushing or " muscle moving," or generally playing 
tricks, and it has always seemed to me that the 
time wasted over mutual recriminations on these 
points, or the silly jokes that appear inevitable, 
when two or three human beings at a table get 
together in a private house ; might be much more 
profitably spent. 

Table turning as a parlour game is about as stupid 
and aimless an amusement as I know. I repre- 
sented all this to Mr Kitchener, but in vain. He 
had attended some psychic meetings in Dunback or 
Dunedin, and evidently wished me to reconsider the 
matter. Also it happened to be the last day of the 
year, when people are always more inclined to be 
obliging, I suppose ; anyway that Saturday night, 
31st December 1887, found me sitting down to a 
table in the little drawing-room of that far-away 
sheep station. 

As some reward for any virtue there may have 
been in yielding my point, I remembered suddenly 
that George Eliot's message on 28th October — two 
months previously — had been rather vague, and that 
it might be interesting, if the chance came, to find 
out whether " before another year has rolled away " 
meant a year from 28th October, or the year of 
which so 'few hours still remained to us. ^ 

After the usual inanities — " / am sure you are 
pushing. ^^ " No ; you are ! / saw your fingers 
pressing heavily. "^^ " Why, how extraordinary I that 



AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 59 

is exactly what I thought about you^ etc. etc., it was 
intimated that a spirit was there giving the name 
of George Eliot, so I put my question at once. 

" I did not mean another year from October last 
— I referred to this year," was the answer. 

" Shall I be able to write automatically ? " was 
my next query. 

" No ; leave that alone — it would be very danger- 
ous for you at present." 

" Shall I be able to hear ? Shall I become 
clair-audient ? " 

" No," came for the second time. 

My next question naturally was : " Then shall I 
be able to see very soon ? " 

" Yes ; for you will become clairvoyant for the 
first time. Remember my warning to use but not 
abuse the gift." 

Now I must explain that all this time a good 
deal of the usual kind of joking had been going on. 
Moreover, I felt intuitively that Mr Kitchener 
thought I was deceiving myself into the idea that 
human muscles could not account for the move- 
ments, and, in fact, the very worst possible con- 
ditions for getting anything of value were present. 

So much so that I did not for one moment sup- 
pose that it was really George Eliot, or that she 
would countenance that particular sort of buf- 
foonery, and the incident made no impression upon 
me at all. I had already taken my hands off the 
table, when someone — Mr Kitchener, I think — 
banged it down four times, and then triumphantly 
observed : " Yes, of course, you will see somebody 
during the night, or rather at jour o'clock in the morning. 



6o SEEN AND UNSEEN 

you see ! " The whole thing was the kind of fiasco 
I had expected, *' degenerating into a romp," as 
poor Corney Grain used to remark about the 
" Lancers " and the stern old lady in the suburban 
villa. 

The bathos of table turning had surely been 
reached when it came to banging the leg of the 
table down four times, and calmly announcing four 
o'clock as the time for my first vision ! 

But the remarkable point is that I did have my 
first vision that night, though it had come and gone 
long before four a.m. 

It is necessary to remember that the sun rises 
about three-thirty a.m. during the end of December 
or first week in January out there, so it would have 
been fairly light before four a.m. ; whereas when I 
woke out of my first sleep that night, it was pitch 
dark. 

My room was the usual whitewashed apartment 
to be found in the ordinary colonial " station," 
with a wooden bed standing about two or three feet 
from the wall, and parallel with the only window 
in the room ; which faced the door (at the foot of 
my bed), and was fitted with a very dark green 
blind, on account of the hot summer sunshine. 

But it was now pitch dark in the room. I woke 
facing the window, but turned on my side, as one 
generally does on such occasions, and this brought 
me face to face with the wall. To my infinite 
amazement there stood between the wall and my 
bed, a diaphanous figure of a woman, quite life size 
or rather more, with one arm held out in a pro- 
tecting fashion towards me, and some drapery about 



AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 6i 

the head. The features were, moreover, quite dis- 
tinct, and, as I afterwards reahsed, the counterpart 
of George Ehot's curious and Savon arola-Hke coun- 
tenance. But at the moment, oddly enough, I only 
thought of two things — first, how extraordinary 
that what had appeared to me such a silly waste of 
time overnight should have had any element of 
reality about it ! Then swiftly came the second 
idea : " And how in the world does it happen that 
I don't feel a bit frightened ? " 

I lay there absolutely content and peaceful, with 
a feeling of blissful satisfaction which I have never 
exactly realised either before or since that one 
occasion. 

" Everything is all right — nothing can really ever 
go wrong — nothing at least that matters at all. All 
the real things are all right. I can never doubt the 
truth of these things after this experience. It was 
promised, and the promise has been redeemed.'''' These 
were the thoughts that passed idly through my 
brain as I lay — fully awake — and looked up at the 
comforting woman's figure. For it seemed more — 
much more — than a mere vision. I have spoken of 
the figure as diaphanous because it was not as solid 
as an ordinary human being, but, on the other hand, 
I could not see the wall through it : it was too solid 
for that. Then I remembered a story told in The 
AthencBum — of all papers — and written by a Dr 
Jephson, of his experience whilst paying a visit to 
Lord Offord, and making notes — late at night — in 
the library of the house for some literary work on 
hand. He had finished his notes, put away the book 
of reference, looked at his watch, found the hands 



62 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

marking two a.m. (so far as I remember), and had 
just said to himself : " Well, I shall be in bed by 
two-thirty after all," when, turning round, he 
found a large leather chair close to his own, tenanted 
by a Spanish priest in some ancient dress ! 

Thinking it might be an hallucination, he deliber- 
ately turned round — away from the priest — rubbed 
his eyes, and then slowly looked back again. Still 
the priest was there, and Dr Jephson then realised 
for the first time that, although not consciously 
frightened or alarmed in any way, he was quite un- 
able to sfeak to the intruder. So he quietly chose a 
pencil, sat down, and calmly took his portrait. The 
priest politely remained until the sketch was com- 
pleted, and then vanished. 

This story, read some years previously, flashed 
through my brain, and I thought: "7 will try 
turning round, and then seeing if she is still there." 
I turned deliberately, facing the window, and then 
realised that it was pitch dark in my room — not the 
faintest glimmer of light came through the heavily 
shrouded window. " Then it canH he four o'' clock, ^^ 
was my triumphant comment. 

It would have been too disappointing had my 
distinguished visitor condoned the unblushing bang- 
ing down four times of the table leg, by choosing 
that hour for her arrival in my room ! But then 
again, how could I see her, since the room was quite 
dark ? It was only necessary to turn round once 
more to the wall to realise that I did see her in fact, 
although I ought not to have done so in theory ! 
I saw her as distinctly as I ever saw a marble statue 
in the Vatican Gallery by the light of noon. Al- 



AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 63 

though I had recalled the Jephson story so cir- 
cumstantially, it never struck me that it might be 
interesting to attempt any conversation, and see 
whether I also were tongue-tied. I did not want 
to speak — there seemed no special reason for speak- 
ing. It was quite enough to lie there with this 
blissful feeling of protection and love folding me 
round like a cloud with golden lining. And as this 
consciousness held me in its loving grasp, to my 
infinite sorrow the kind, protecting figure disap- 
peared, gently and very slowly, sinking into the 
ground on the spot where I had first seen her ; and 
once more all was dark in the room. 

I lay, too happy and peaceful for movement or 
even speculation for some ten minutes, and then 
it struck me that I had better light the candle by 
my side, and find out what o'clock it might be. 

Now I have a rather accurate idea of time, and 
can generally tell within a minute or two how long 
any special work may have taken me. Looking at 
my watch, I saw it was just two-twenty-five a.m., 
so I settled in my own mind that I must have seen 
the figure at two-fifteen a.m., or possibly at two-ten 
A.M., for I think the experience lasted nearly five 
minutes altogether. Anyway, I felt sure that ten 
minutes, as nearly as possible, had elapsed between 
the sinking of the figure out of sight and my lighting 
the match in order to consult my watch. It may 
have been nine minutes, or possibly eleven, but I 
feel confident the time mentioned would be within 
these limits. 

Therefore next morning, when our host appeared, 
and I was chaffed about " the vision," I said boldly : 



64 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

*' You think it all nonsense, and I confess I did not 
believe anything that came last night when so much 
joking was going on, but I was mistaken. I did 
see, for the first time in my life, anything abnormal." 
And I repeated my experience, just as I have now 
written it down. 

Incredulous looks greeted me, and then Mr 
Kitchener said quietly : 

" Oh yes, you saw something at four a.m. I am 
not at all surprised to hear that." 

" Not at four a.m.," I answered, " but at two- 
fifteen A.M. I made a special note of the time. I 
was asleep again long before four a.m., and never 
slept better in my life." 

He looked puzzled, and then suggested that my 
watch must have gone wrong ; but we compared 
notes, and our watches were registering exactly the 
same hour within a minute or two. 

I found out later that, having learnt something of 
the Thought Transference Theory at the Dunedin 
Circle or Metaphysical Club which he had attended, 
Mr Kitchener had attempted to make me see a vision 
at four A.M., but as he confessed he had been fast 
asleep when I did see {an hour and three quarters 
before his efforts started), it would take a very in- 
genious person to prove that the latter had any- 
thing to do with the occurrence. 

A deeply interesting corroboration reached me, 
however, a few weeks later, by which time I_had 
visited the " Sounds," and many other places of 
interest, and had arrived safely at Auckland, in the 
North Island. 

On the morning of my vision, I must not forget 



AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 65 

to mention, that I had spoken of it to Mr Kitciiener's 
faithful Irish housekeeper, whose nationaUty I knew 
would prevent her thinking me a mere lunatic. By 
this time scepticism had the upper hand, and I was 
beginning to try to explain away everything in the 
true Podmorian spirit. 

Could Mr Kitchener or any other person present 
have had to do with the matter ? In this case my 
blissful feelings would naturally be merely the result 
of imagination, and easily disposed of on this ground. 
So I questioned the little housekeeper when she 
brought my hot water as to whether it could have 
been possible for Mr Kitchener or anyone else in the 
house to have access to a clean sheet or tablecloth, 
and to have masqueraded in the garden outside my 
room. She indignantly denied the possibility. 
" The linen is all locked up by me ; besides, no 
one would have been so wicked. It might have 
frightened you out of your senses, ma'am ! Do you 
suppose the master would have done such a thing ? " 

No ; I did not really accuse anyone of such a cruel 
and stupid joke. Moreover, it was a little difficult, 
even for Podmorian ingenuity, to explain how 
man or woman, masquerading in a white sheet in 
the garden outside, could convey the fairly solid 
figure of a faked " George Eliot," who stood well 
out between the wall and my bed ; and this through 
a thick green blind and curtains, when garden and 
room alike were shrouded in absolute darkness ! 

Foiled in all my attempts to find a " sensible 
solution " to the mystery, I determined to write 
and ask Lizzie Maynard of Melbourne if she could 
throw any light upon matters, my decision in taking 



68 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

points you had specially begged us to remember in 
connection with Miss Pearl's probable prejudices. 
It was so splendidly written, and so quickly, that 
you can imagine our delight ! We could not bear 
to give up planchette even after both our names 
had been signed, and I said pleadingly : ' Oh, 
donH go away ! Do stop and tell us something more.'' 
" In large letters, as you see " (Lizzie enclosed the 
script), " was written very decidedly : 

" No, I CANNOT STAY WITH YOU NOW— I HAVE 
PROMISED TO GO AND SEE StELLA'S DAUGHTER. 

" I remembered, dear Miss Bates, that G. Eliot 
had said your mother's name in spirit life was 
Stella, so, of course, we knew that she meant us to 
understand that she was going to see you. 

" Unfortunately, you did not mention the hour of 
her visit, but we took the time when enclosed message 
was written — very accurately — in order to tell you 
about it, and the hour was just twelve- thirty a.m. 
Do write and tell us that was the time when she 
appeared to you — we feel sure it must have been — 
but are longing to have our idea confirmed, etc. etc." 

Now my young friends had evidently entirely for- 
gotten the difference in time between Dunedin and 
Melbourne, and I must confess to my own amaze- 
ment when I found that it was considerably over 
the sixty minutes, which I should have vaguely 
supposed it to be. 

In fact, I was rather disappointed to think there 
was so wide a margin between the two occurrences, 
until I casually asked a gentleman, who was staying 
in my hotel, if he could tell me the difference in time 
between the two cities. 



AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 69 

" Not exactly, Fm afraid, but it is considerably 
over an hour. Ah, there is a good atlas ! I can 
easily calculate it for you." He remained silent for 
a moment, and then raising his head, said : " As 
nearly an hour and three quarters as possible." 
This was pretty good evidence of the practically 
simultaneous experience of my friends in Melbourne 
at twelve-thirty a.m., with my own at two-fifteen 
A.M. in the neighbourhood of Dunedin. 

When I first became acquainted with Mr Myers, 
shortly after my return from Australia and New 
Zealand, I told him this story. He was greatly 
interested, but pointed out that it was useless from 
the evidential point of view unless I would take the 
trouble to write one or two letters to the Colonies. 

So I wrote to Mr Kitchener for confirmation of the 
fact that I was staying in his house on the night 
of 31st December 1887, and had told him of my 
experience next morning, exactly as here related. 
Then I had to get Miss Lizzie Maynard's testimony 
with regard to her letter to me, and finally, I think, 
the testimony of Lily Boyle and her father that 
Miss Maynard was their guest in Melbourne on the 
occasion of the New Year's Eve dance. These 
letters are presumably still amongst the archives 
of the Society of Psychical Research, and the story 
was printed by them in their Proceedings some 
years ago. 

I may add a last evidential touch by saying that 
when I met Miss Pearl for the first time after my 
travels, she referred to the letter she had received — 
under favour of my introduction — and quite spon- 
taneously remarked upon its excellence, adding : 



70 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

"I could scarcely believe that two young 
Australian girls, as they described themselves to me, 
could have written such an admirable letter." 

I did not disclose the real source of the com- 
position, as the popular author thinks that she has 
no belief in spirituahsm. 



CHAPTER IV 

HONG KONG, ALASKA, AND NEW YORK 

The spring months of 1888 found me at Brisbane, 
en route for China, after spending a pleasant month 
with old friends on a well-known station belonging 
to the late Sir Arthur Hodgson, named Eton Vale, 
and situated on the beautiful and healthy Darling 
Downs of Queensland. 

Before returning to Sydney from New Zealand, 
my female " Dr Livingstone " had reappeared upon 
the scene in the most unexpected manner. Our 
" historical meeting " took place in an Auckland 
hotel, where she suddenly turned up one day, 
driven back from Samoa by the intense heat. So 
after some gentle recriminations, she " having sup- 
posed the delay on my part might mean an entire 
change of plan," and I having supposed — from her 
letters — that Sydney was such a Paradise that she 
could hardly be dragged from it even by a flaming 
sword, we agreed to cry " quits," and continue our 
travels together. So Miss Greenlow spent the 
month of March in Sydney, whilst I paid my visit 
to Queensland, and we met once more at Brisbane 
to take steamer for Thursday Island, Cape Darwin, 
and eventually Hong Kong. Only one small matter 
of psychic interest occurred during this voyage. 

I have mentioned in a previous chapter the little 

71 



72 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

" swallows," which I first saw in San Francisco in 
the year 1886. I had been accustomed to seeing 
them ever since that date, and had been frequently 
commiserated for incipient eye trouble in conse- 
quence, by more than one sceptical friend. 

On the very day we went on board the Hong Kong 
steamer at Brisbane, a new sign appeared : a single 
bird, holding in its beak a ring with half hoop of five 
stones, presumably diamonds. I told my friend 
about this, but neither she nor I could imagine any 
significance in it. At that time we had not even 
met any of our fellow-passengers to speak to, for we 
were all taken up with settling into our cabins and 
trying to make ourselves as comfortable as circum- 
stances would permit. 

For a whole week the same little bird and the 
same ring were persistently held up before me. 
Then an inkling of the possible meaning broke upon 
me suddenly. Within a fortnight of our sailing 
this suspicion was confirmed, and the little bird's 
warning or suggestion amply justified. But " that 
is another story ! " Curiously enough, the new 
" sign in the heavens " was withdrawn as soon as I 
had grasped its meaning. 

I must hasten over our delightful stay in Japan, 
because amongst much of extreme interest from 
artistic, social, and various other points of view, 
nothing occurred which has any special bearing on 
my present subject. 

Leaving Japan eventually by sailing from Yoko- 
hama to Vancouver (Washington territory), the old 
threads were once more put into my hands. 

We made the acquaintance on board the old 



HONG KONG, ALASKA, AND NEW YORK 73 

P. & O. Abyssinia of the late Captain MacArthur, 
a kindly and genial naval man. He was an 
Australian by birth, but belonged to our English 
navy, and was just returning home on his pro- 
motion as commander. 

He became rather interested in my " queer ideas," 
and ended by suggesting some experiments with 
" the table," so he persuaded the ship's carpenter 
to put together a small rough wooden table. The 
sittings were held, generally after dinner, in either 
my cabin or that of my " stable companion " Miss 
Greenlow\ So far as I remember, we three were the 
only sitters, and I am bound to confess the sittings 
were sometimes very monotonous, even viewed from 
the indulgent perspective of a sea voyage. In fact, 
I can now recall only one incident of any real value. 

The dear old nurse, spoken of in my opening 
chapter, had now been for three or four years on 
the other side of the veil, but had never given me 
the slightest sign of her presence. But she came 
several times during this voyage, and always with 
the same object — namely, to entreat, and finally 
implore me, to give up a projected tour in Alaska. 

Miss Greenlow and I had been prevented from 
undertaking this, two years earlier, when visiting 
Victoria (Vancouver), and she was very keen to go 
there from Washington territory on this occasion. 
I was fwt keen for the expedition, but had made no 
strong objection to it, and it was understood that 
we should go together. 

This was the tour which my old nurse now pleaded 
so anxiously should be given up, so far as / was 
concerned. 



74 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

" It will ruin your health, my darling,"*^ she said 
more than once. " DonH go there ; take my advice ^ 
And on one occasion, just before landing, she added : 
'* You will find letters awaiting you which will enable 
you to make other plans.^^ 

This proved true — in a certain way. The first 
letter opened in the budget which fell to my share, 
told me of the sudden death of our family solicitor, 
which would have been a good excuse for a hasty 
return to England had any such pretext been 
necessary. 

But this was not the case, for my companion, 
although quite determined to go to Alaska herself, 
was not in the least inclined to over-persuade me 
to accompany her. She was a very independent 
woman, quite accustomed to travelling alone, and 
I knew that neither her enjoyment nor her con- 
venience would be affected by my decision one 
way or the other. I had no wish to go myself, 
and, moreover, thought it quite probable that my 
dear old nurse's warnings might be amply justified. 
But there were other grave considerations to be 
taken into account, and I still feel that I adopted 
the right, although not the pleasanter course, when 
I allowed my fellow-passengers to depart East, 
joking me on my want of faith in the warnings 
from the spirits, and accompanied my friend, very 
unwillingly, to Alaska. 

My nurse's earnest entreaties were only too fully 
justified on the physical plane, to say nothing of the 
miserable discomfort of the trip (which in those days 
had to be made in an overcrowded cargo boat.) I 
took a chill in those Arctic regions, which later 



HONG KONG, ALASKA. AND NEW YORK 75 

developed into the longest and most serious illness 
of my life. It took months to make even a partial 
recovery, and the effects will remain during my life. 
Yet I have never regretted my decision. 

This little episode seems to throw some light upon 
the way such warnings sliould be treated. To give 
no heed to them on the one hand, or to follow them 
blindly, in spite of every other consideration, on the 
other ; these seem to me the Scylla and Charybdis of 
our lives. It shows that we 7nust judge for ourselves ; 
we cannot shift the burden of responsibility on any 
other shoulders. How could we gain the real educa- 
tion of life were it otherwise ? 

Had I turned my back on Alaska I should have 
gained enormously, physically speaking, and yet 
failed in a moral test. But my dear old nurse, who 
considered only — probably saw only — the physical 
evils to be avoided, was entirely in the right, from 
her standpoint. The faithful soul was doing her best 
to shield her nursling from danger. 

A severe illness was entailed by my Alaska ex- 
periences. " Livingstone and Stanley " were once 
more separated. In other words. Miss Greenlow 
was obliged to return to England alone, leaving 
me to be nursed through a long and painful illness 
by kind friends and connections in Toronto. One 
of my doctors — the brother of my hostess — kindly 
made time to take me and my nurse to New York, 
in order that he might put me under the special 
care of the ship's doctor, and also be able to certify, 
as required, that I was in a fit condition to under- 
take the voyage. 

It was during the day or two spent in New York 



76 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

before sailing, that I induced this gentleman to ac- 
company me one evening to a seance held by Mrs 
Stoddart Gray, who has been previously mentioned 
in this narrative. 

Dr Theodore Covernton had all the ordinary 
doctor's prejudices against anything unseen or un- 
known. He had read my book on America, and 
considered the chapter on " Spiritualism " a lament- 
able lapse " from the good sense shown in the rest 
of the book ! *' I represented to him that for a 
physician to deny all possibilities of Hypnotism or 
Mesmerism, Thought Transmission, etc., meant 
losing some very valuable aids in his profession, 
and would probably soon mean being left pretty 
badly behind in the race. 

Knowing of no specially good hypnotist in New 
York, and as there was no time to find one out, I 
boldly suggested that he should plunge into still 
deeper depths of " folly," and accompany me to 
the house of Mrs Stoddart Gray. 

The usual performances went on, but whether 
owing to Dr Covernton's attitude of mind or other 
causes, nothing of any special interest to him or to 
me occurred. 

One incident impressed him, I think ; certainly 
he could suggest no possible explanation of it, for 
it happened in a very fair amount of light and 
close to our feet. A gentleman and lady were 
sitting in the circle who had brought wjth 
them their little boy, a child of seven years old. 
I had asked the lady if she considered it wise to 
bring so young a child into such a milieu, several 
hours after an English child would have been put 



HONG KONG, ALASKA, AND NEW YORK 77 

to bed, and her answer was cheery and character- 
istic : 

" Well, I guess we shouldn't have much peace at 
home if we didn't bring Charlie along with us to see 
his Granny. We took him once, and since then he 
always insists upon coming. He loves talking to 
his Granny, and he is not a bit afraid of her." 

At this moment a small frail woman stepped out 
from the cabinet, and came right up towards us, 
motioning to the little grandson that she wished him 
to go into the cabinet with her. This he did without 
a moment's hesitation, and the curtain fell, and con- 
cealed them both from view. The interview lasted 
for some minutes, and when the little boy reap- 
peared, he was holding his Granny by the hand, and 
was evidently on the best of terms with her. I do 
not expect my readers to believe me, but this is 
exactly what happened next : 

The child had brought some toys — a little train 
and some building blocks — " to get Granny to play 
with him as usual," and the fragile old lady knelt 
down on the floor, and played with him just as any 
ordinary Granny might have done, only with far 
more agility. 

In the very midst of their brick building and 
train starting, a terrible catastrophe occurred, 
which spoilt the rest of the evening for the poor child. 
Granny had evidently forgotten that her time was 
limited, by conditions of which we are still pro- 
foundly ignorant. 

Quite suddenly, and without a word of warning, 
she disappeared, not into the cabinet at her back, 
but right through the carpet under our feet, and 



78 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

well within a yard of the said feet, and this with 
two or three gas-jets burning over our heads ! 

There was no mistake about it. Dr Covemton 
and I were sitting next to the father and mother, 
whilst the child and his grandmother played at our 
feet. One moment she was there ; the next she 
had disappeared like a flash into a mere cloud of 
mist, and even this was quickly withdrawn, ap- 
parently through the floor. No trap-door theory 
could account for this, because the woman had 
disappeared, and only the wisp of ethereal garments 
remained, before the latter were also dissipated. 
We must, moreover, note the difficulty of working a 
trap door immediately under the feet of a sceptical 
young physician, who at once investigated the 
carpet, hoping in vain to find in it some solution of 
the mystery ! 

I have already mentioned that the whole incident 
took place, in light sufficiently good to read a book 
without straining the eyes. 

The poor little boy was terribly upset, and sobbed 
bitterly. His parents said they had brought him 
many times before, and such a fiasco had never before 
taken place. Mrs Stoddart Gray was very indignant 
about it. 

" Too bad ! She ought to have known she was 
staying too long, and risking a fright for the child. 
If she had only gone back into the cabinet he would 
not have been frightened. But she stayed too__long 
and had not enough strength to get back."' 

The child was too thoroughly frightened and upset 
to admit of any consolation, and the parents were 
obhged to take him away, still sobbing, and asking 



HONG KONG, ALASKA, AND NEW YORK 79 

why Granny had gone away like that and given him 
such a fright. 

A year later, in London, I took Dr Covernton — 
by appointment — to see Dr Carl Hansen, who was 
then giving hypnotic treatment, and also doing 
some work in demonstrations for the Society for 
Psychical Research. Dr Hansen tried in vain 
to put either Dr Theodore Covernton or myself 
under the influence, so was obliged to have recourse 
to his wife. Naturally this was considered a " most 
suspicious circumstance " by my companion ; but I 
noticed that he was very much interested in his 
conversation with her — from the medical point of 
view — and he was sufficiently honest to admit that 
he could not explain what happened in his presence, 
upon any normal hypothesis. 



CHAPTER V 

I N D I A, I 8 9 o-i 8 9 1 

In the month of November 1890 I started with a 
young friend for my first visit to India. 

My companion was still at the age when social 
India was naturally more interesting to her than 
either the historical or mystical aspects of the 
country. And, for myself, I went there in those 
days rather to see the glorious buildings of a 
magnificent Past, than with any view of wresting 
occult secrets from the Fakirs and Yogis of the 
Present. 

It was well perhaps that one's ambitions were so 
limited by the Possible, for I am very much in- 
clined to think that Mystic India is and must remain 
a sealed book for the English. 

We must always remember the natural prejudices 
of a conquered race towards the conqueror. In 
addition to this, the Hindoostanees consider (and 
who shall say without ample cause ?) that English- 
men are hopelessly " borne '* and sunk in material- 
ism, incapable of exercising an imagination which 
they don't possess ; with a top dressing of conven- 
tional orthodoxy, so far as their own special religion 
is concerned, but with nothing but ridicule or thinly 
veiled contempt for the religious channels through 
which other races may be taking their spiritual 

80 



INDIA, 1890-1891 81 

food. We have given them only too much reason 
for these conclusions. 

As a consequence of this state of things, English- 
men and women are looked upon as " quite im- 
possible " from the Indian point of view, and a 
devout and educated Hindoo would no more think 
of discussing his transcendental ideas with such 
people than we should think of discussing delicate 
questions of Art — in its various branches — with the 
first village yokel we happened to meet in the road. 
I was confirmed in these ideas by noticing the 
difference in the welcome accorded to a charming 
young Swedish lady, whom we met at Benares on 
her wedding tour. She had brought excellent native 
introductions from her own country, where certain 
Rajahs and Maharajahs had been entertained by 
her King, and thanks to these, and, as she said, 
" to the fact of my not being English,''^ she had access 
to many interesting places, and took part in in- 
teresting functions, from which the rest of us were 
debarred. 

I am hoping to pay a third visit to India some 
day, with the special object in view of occult in- 
vestigation. It remains to be seen whether, by any 
fortunate accident, I may then be more successful 
in encountering anything more interesting than the 
ordinary clever conjurers, who sometimes pose as 
Fakirs, and may be found by the tourist on every 
hotel veranda in India. 

Meanwhile I am limited by the title of my book 
to personal incidents, as to which I find one or two 
notes in my Indian diary. 

Making the usual tour, but including Lahore — 



82 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

where my brother had lived at Government House 
for several years as Military Secretary to Sir Robert 
Egerton (who was in his day), Lieutenant-Governor 
of the Punjab — ^we came in due course to Delhi. 

Our first day there was devoted to tracing Mutiny 
relics of all kinds, and about four p.m. in the after- 
noon we drove out to the famous Ridge to see the 
Mutiny Memorial. This, as most people nowadays 
know, is a red standstone tower, with staircase of 
rough stone inside, and small windows pierced 
through at varying intervals. It stands upon an 
extensive marble flooring, which is inscribed with 
the names of the various regiments — officers and 
men — who took part in the renowned siege, and died 
for their country in consequence. 

As we drove towards the Memorial, the whole 
place seemed to be in a flutter of excitement. 
Hundreds of coolies were flocking round, and we 
both remarked how much more interested they 
appeared to be in these monuments of past events 
than the corresponding class of English labourers 
would have been. But on arrival we found there 
was no question of intelligent historical interest. 
The fact was that a poor cooUe — who had just 
climbed up the Memorial Tower by the inner stair- 
case — ^had fallen out of one of the windows de- 
scribed> and was lying on the marble floor below, at 
the far side from us, crushed and dying. We were 
told that an Englishman had, fortunately, been 
present, and had driven off at once for a doctor. 
So nothing could be done for the poor man until 
the latter arrived. 

Meanwhile our native servant — Bobajee — had, of 



INDIA. 1890-1891 83 

course, rushed off to see what was to be seen of the 

tragedy, and, rather to my horror, my girl friend 
seemed about to follow his example ! It was 
terrible to think of the poor man lying there in his 
death agony ; but he was already surrounded by 
natives, and no real help could be given without 
fear of doing more harm than good before the 
doctor was brought to the spot. Therefore 
merely to go and look on, without being able to 
succour, seemed to me an added horror to the 
tragedy, and I turned round rather sharply on my 
young friend, and expostulated with her. As a 
matter of fact, she did not go ; but I am obliged to 
mention the incident as accounting for a certain 
momentary excitement and annoyance on my part, 
which proved to be factors in the story about to be 
related. 

Allowing for difference of time between Delhi and 
London, a very old friend of mine, Lady Wincote 
(who was then living in London, where I was in the 
habit of visiting her constantly when in town), was 
lying in bed, resting after a disturbed night, at the 
very hour of our visit to the Mutiny Memorial. 

It was about noon in England ; she was fully 
awake, and had been reading. Looking at her watch 
she realised it was time to make a move if she meant 
to come down for luncheon. Suddenly the door 
opened, and / walked into her bedroom, and right 
round the bed, until I stood between her and the 
window, which was to her left as she lay in bed. 

I was dressed in ordinary outdoor attire, and 
seemed much excited and annoyed about something. 
I was talking continuously, as it seemed to her ; 



84 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

but she could not make out any connected sentences, 
and " wondered what had upset me " so much. 
She spoke to me, asking what had happened ; but 
I took no notice of her questions, standing with my 
face to the window and my back to her for a few 
moments. Then I turned round, and dehberately 
retraced my steps, past the ottoman, skirting round 
the bed, and was just disappearing through the 
door, when she made a final effort to attract my 
attention, asking a very practical question : 

" Emmie ! Do tell me before you go, what 
number you are staying at in Oxford Terrace " 
(the part of town where I always stayed at that 
time). Lady Wincote said : " You made no answer 
at all, but whisked out of the door in a great hurry, 
and then for the first time I remembered that you 
were in India. It had all seemed so natural, as you 
had often been in my bedroom, that I only thought 
at the moment that you must have returned unex- 
pectedly to London from the country. My one 
anxiety was to know which number on the Terrace 
would find you, in case you had changed your ad- 
dress there." 

Now all this was, fortunately, written out to me 
by my friend on the very day that it happened — 
i.e. 8th January 1891 — and crossed my letter to her 
telling her of the incident. My letter was written a 
day or two later I think ; but I was keeping a strict 
diary at the time, and under date of 8th January 
have the record of the event, corresponding with the 
date of Lady Wincote's letter to me.^ 

^ Both my diary and Lady Wincote's letter were shown to Mr 
Myers on my return to England, also my letter which crossed the 



INDIA, 1890-1891 85 

Probably in any case I should have written to 
tell this friend of the incident, on account of a 
conversation I had with Bobajee when he returned 
from his ghastly entertainment. I had looked in- 
side the Memorial, and had seen that the stone steps 
were crumbling away and looked very unsafe, so 
when he came back and said : " Something bad 
inside there, Lady Sahib ^^ I concluded naturally that 
he was referring to the state of the staircase, and 
attributing the poor coolie's fall to some such cause. 

But he denied this strenuously : " No I no ! 
Lady Sahib — some bad debit inside there. He threw 
coolie over ! " Then he went on to tell us that on one 
special night in the year no native man, woman, or 
child in the whole city could be induced to pass 
the Mutiny Memorial at midnight. The few daring 
souls who had passed there, had found the tower all 
lighted up inside, and the Sepoys and the British 
soldiers had come back, and were fighting their battles 
over again ! The man spoke in simple good faith, 
and assured me that all Delhi people knew this to be 
a fact, and gave the place a wide berth on that 
anniversary. 

The idea of the " bad debil " throwing the poor 
coolie down from the top of the tower, followed 
by this curious legend, interested me as a bit of 
folk-lore, but my companion was drastic in her 
remarks. " Silly nonsense, Bobajee ! " was her re- 
ception of the story ; and this made me feel intensely 
sorry for the moment, that Lady Wincote, who 
would have been as much interested as myself, 

one from Lady Wincote to me. He was greatly interested in the 
account. 



86 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

should not have been present. Did this moment 
of intense desire for her, project itself into the 
appearance she saw in her room ? Who can say ? 
Certainly it was a curious coincidence that she 
should see me in an annoyed and excited state just 
when I was feeling annoyed and excited — so many 
thousand miles away. 

Delhi seems to have been specially favourable to 
psychic experiences, for I find another one recorded 
on the very day succeeding the last event. 

My friend, having some slight ailment, I had 
driven out alone with our native servant, and we 
made a long tour, returning about six p.m. past 
Ludlow Castle, of famous Mutiny memory, and 
still — in the year 1891 — a Government bungalow. 

The present Czar of Russia was travelling through 
India at the time as Czarewitch, with his cousin. 
Prince George of Greece, and they were expected 
to arrive in Delhi that same evening. The Royal 
party and suite were to be lodged at Ludlow Castle, 
and were expected within an hour. 

Bobajee jumped off the box of my carriage, and 
urged me to " go look, see ! " 

" No, Bobajee ! Drive on — can't go look see — they 
no let me in." 

" Yes, yes. Lady Sahib," he said eagerly — " every- 
thing ready — all gone away — nobody in there yet." 

With our English notions this seems inconceiv- 
able, but it proved to be absolutely true. I went in, 
expecting to be turned back ignominiously before 
I had crossed the hall, but there was positively no 
one there ! The place was like a City of the Dead. 
Yet within an hour, a banquet arranged for about 



INDIA, 1890-1891 87 

seventy people was to take place ! I made the best 
of my opportunity, ranged through the numerous 
bedrooms — with hanging Japanese blinds shutting 
them off and each one inscribed with the card of 
the special Russian or Greek general who formed 
part of the suite. At length I strolled into the 
dining-room — a long, narrow room — arranged for 
the coming festivity (at least sixty to seventy covers 
were laid), the flowers arranged on the tablecloth 
in the pretty, artistic Indian fashion, all the beauti- 
ful glass and silver placed in readiness. 

Nothing was wanting but the presence of the guests 
for whom all this preparation had been made. 

The short Indian twilight was already upon us 
as I stood there for a moment, contrasting the 
dead and almost eerie silence, with the Hghts and 
laughter that would so quickly replace it. 

A fireplace was close to me as I stood at the far 
end of the room, looking down the whole length of 
the table. Glancing up, I realised that the only 
picture in the room was hung over this fireplace. 
The picture in question had no artistic value — the 
painting was fiat and poor ; even the subject did 
not strike me for the first moment as anything very 
remarkable. It was the portrait of a man in the 
prime of life — about thirty-five, I should have sup- 
posed — with the long whiskers and rather prim 
pose of a portrait made by an evidently poor artist, 
probably thirty or forty years previous to my visit. 

But as I looked again, a curious sensation ' came 
over me. In spite of the painter's failure to convey 
anything more like a living man than a dead pressed 
rose is like a living rose, there was something in the 



88 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

eyes of the portrait that held me, something that 
rose triumphant above the artist's Hmitations. At 
the same moment I was conscious of a Presence 
behind my back ; of somebody who was looking at 
the picture with me ; of somebody who was saying 
to me (not with the outer, but an inner voice) : " That 
is a picture of me, hut I am not there — / am here, 
close to you ; behind your shoulder — I am looking 
at it with you'^ 

The impression was so strong that it seemed al- 
most as if a hand were pressing on my shoulder. I 
turned round involuntarily, but no one was there. 
Then I looked at the picture again, and always with 
the same weird sensation that the man whom the 
picture represented had been strong enough to make 
me feel his actual presence in the room, although I 
could see nothing. There was no name on the 
picture of either subject or artist, no possible clue 
to identity, and looked at as a picture alone, there 
was nothing in the fiat, conventional presentment of 
the features to account for my experience. This 
made it the more remarkable. I could scarcely 
tear myself away from the almost overwhelming 
sense of the presence of some strong and strangely 
magnetic personality, but the fast fading twilight 
warned me not to risk an ignominious retreat. So 
I went hurriedly through the large and handsome 
drawing-room, which was filled with portraits, 
chiefly of deceased governors and generals, many 
of them admirably painted, and a striking contrast 
to the one poor and commonplace picture already 
seen. 

The absolute incongruity between the impression 



INDIA, 1890-1891 89 

received and the object which roused it, led me to 
make inquiries, in spite of my friend's jokes over 
my powers of imagination. 

" Anyway, I am going to clear this up," I said with 
determination ; and in a few days my perseverance 
was rewarded, and my impression amply justified, 
by finding that I had been looking at the portrait — 
feeble and poor as it was — of Brigadier-General 
Nicholson. 

None of my readers need to be told that if any dead 
man could impress himself upon the living, this 
would be the man capable of such a feat. 

Even to this day there is a small religious sect in 
India called the Nicholasain, who have handed down 
the memory of this " god rather than man," who 
had to dismount from his horse occasionally, to 
thrash his would-be worshippers, and put a stop to 
their inconvenient adoration ! 

Nicholson's brilliant achievements in the Mutiny ; 
his absolute control over men of the most diverse 
character ; the devotion with which he inspired his 
soldiers, and his own glorious death in the very 
moment of victory — all these are matters of history. 

I feel glad and grateful to have known, even for 
a few passing moments, what that influence had 
been ; and when I found out Brigadier - General 
Nicholson's grave at Delhi, after my Ludlow Castle 
experience, I left my flowers on the grave of an 
honoured acquaintance, rather than of a man 
known to me only through historical records. 

One more incident, or rather coincidence, and I 
must close my Indian chapter. 

This also is connected with the Mutiny and with 



90 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

Delhi, but the special coincidence, to which I refer, 
took place at Agra, when my friend and I were 
staying at the hotel there in the early spring of 
1891. 

One of my oldest and most valued friends is 
Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred S. Jones, V.C., formerly 
of the 9th Lancers, and one of our Mutiny heroes. 
As everything connected with that historical tragedy 
seems to have perennial interest for every English- 
man — no matter what his creed or politics — I make 
no excuse for furnishing some details connected with 
my friend's career. His record from Hart's Army 
List is as follows : — 

"Lieutenant-Colonel Jones was present at the battle 
of Budlekee Serai, and at Delhi throughout the siege 
operations, including the assault and capture of the 
city, having been D.A.Q.M.G. from 8th August to 
23rd September 1857. Served with the 9th Lancers 
in Greathead's pursuing column, and was present 
in the actions of Bolimshuhur and Alighur and 
battle of Agra — where he was dangerously wounded, 
having received a musket-shot wound and twenty- 
two sabre cuts. He was mentioned in the despatches 
of Sir Hope Grant on three different occasions, and 
has received the Victoria Cross for taking a nine- 
pounder gun, with the assistance of some men from 
his squadron, in the action of Budlekee Serai (medal 
with clasp and Brevet of Major)." 

Although, as a child, I had heard of the bravery 
and the terrible wounds of one who was to become 
later in life one of my greatest friends, the actual 
details of the Agra catastrophe were hazy in my 
memory. Two things, however, had remained 



INDIA, 1890-1891 91 

firmly imbedded in my mind — first, that a brother 
officer had told me that he was standing close by 
Colonel Jones when, as a young officer, the latter 
attended the Levee to receive his Victoria Cross, and 
that the Queen was so much agitated by his ap- 
pearance that she could hardly pin it on. Also, that 
this brother officer heard her whisper to her hus- 
band : " My God, Albert ! look at that poor boy ! 
He has been cut to pieces ! '* 

The other childish memory is that the Taj had 
been turned into a hospital at the time of the Mutiny, 
and that my friend, amongst others, had been 
nursed there. This latter proved to have been a 
mistake on the part of my informants. It was the 
Moti Musjid (the Pearl Mosque) which was turned 
to this account, and in which my friend was nursed 
back to life, to the surprise of all who knew the ex- 
tent of his disaster. 

It is specially important for people blessed, or 
cursed, with psychic gifts " to give no occasion to the 
enemy " by exaggeration or inexact memory of 
details. So, with the wholesome dread of a well- 
read reviewer before my eyes, I determined to go 
to the fountain-head, and ask Colonel Jones himself 
to supply me with the true incidents which make 
the Agra episode a moving picture before our eyes. 
He has kindly consented to do this, and I give the 
narrative in his own words : — 

After the fall of Delhi, a column, under General 
Greathead, was sent down to Lucknow, and as three 
squadrons of the 9th Lancers were told off to go, I re- 
signed my staff appointment, and went with my troop. 



92 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

After two fights — Bolimshuhur and Alighur — we 
were hurried off to Agra, sixty-six miles in thirty- 
six hours. But on arrival we found that the Agra 
people had recovered from their fright and Great- 
head was fool enough to believe their story that the 
enemy was twelve miles away, and therefore took up 
ground for our camp, just by the graveyard and 
parade-ground, which you will remember. There 
was a high crop of sugar-cane, concealing everything 
beyond the parade-ground, and after most of the 
officers of the whole force had gone off to Agra Fort 
to breakfast with friends, cannon-shot began to fall 
amongst us ; and everyone had time to fall in, as 
the horses had not been unsaddled. 

My squadron, consisting of French's and my 
troops, was told off as an escort to Blunt's Battery, 
F.A., which formed the left of the line, consisting of 
our other two squadrons, more F. Artillery, 8th and 
75th Regiments, etc., all moving to the front through 
high crops. 

Then we saw the enemy — 700 or 800 yards off — 
and Blunt unlimbered his guns, and began to fire, 
when we soon saw a body of cavalry moving off 
across our front, to turn our left flank, and Blunt 
said we must go back to defend our camp. So he 
limbered up, and we all (i.e. our squadron and Blunt's 
guns) began to straggle back through the high crops. 
But Blunt said he must leave one troop with two 
of his guns, and French's troop was stopped for the 
purpose. Instead of staying with it, he felt so sure 
we should have a chance at the cavalry we had 
seen (Mutineers) that he came on with me, and 
together we formed up my troop on the parade- 



INDIA, 1890-1891 93 

ground, close to Blunt's guns, which we saw already 
unlimbered. 

A squadron of Irregular (mutinied) cavalry was 
coming in our direction over the parade-ground, 
with a blue squadron of (mutinied) regular cavalry 
in support, both trotting ; so, of course, we went 
for the Red (head of the echellon they formed). 

Then I saw French shot, and the hind quarters 
of his grey horse pass round the left flank of my 
little troop ; then I gave the word Gallop, and the 
Red squadron, to my surprise, halted. 

Observing its leader taking aim at me with his 
carbine, I inclined a little to my left, in order to 
stick him, never dreaming that I should be hit before 
I could do so, and I was almost within reach before 
he fired, and his bullet went through my bridle arm, 
so I had to take my reins on my sword hand and 
jam my horse into the ranks, just behind the squadron 
leader who had shot me. 

Now to clear up your mystery about my being 
left to my fate (I had specially asked Colonel Jones 
how he happened to be left alone amongst the Sepoys, 
whose numbers were registered by his sabre cuts in 
so ghastly a fashion), I was not left to my fate ; on 
the contrary, the man on the left of my troop, who 
alone could see, put his lance through the squadron 
leader, and stayed about — outside the ring — trying 
to get to me to the last, and got the V.C. on my 
report to that effect. 

My troop, occupying, in double rank, about twenty 
yards, went straight on after the twenty yards or 
so front of the enemy's probable front of perhaps 
fifty yards. So there were plenty of Sowars left to 



94 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

mob round me and to keep off the man who tried to 
save me. Of course, my men were quite right in pur- 
suing the broken force as they did, right off the fields 

This account has the immense advantage of being 
taken verbatim from Colonel Jones' letter just re- 
ceived by me. It has the disadvantage that such a 
letter, from a brave man, would naturally possess — 
i.e. that of minimising his share in the episode to 
the point of making it difficult for the lay mind to 
realise where the heroism came in — which heroism 
is a vital point in my " coincidence." Fortunately, 
I have the best authority for saying that the 
" Blunt " mentioned in this record always main- 
tained that Colonel Alfred Jones had "saved his 
guns." It appears that at the time of the unex- 
pected attack from the enemy. Colonel Jones and 
two or three friends (who had not gone to the fort) 
were breakfasting under the shade of the cemetery 
wall when the alarm was given. My friend, wishing 
to rest his charger after the long forced march from 
Agra, had taken a spare troop horse, saddled with a 
hunting saddle. 

When the round shot began to fall, there was no 
time to get his charger. There was nothing for it 
but to put on sword and pistol and ride straight in 
to the enemy's ranks. No wonder the poor people 
shut up in Agra were enthusiastic over this " charge 
of cavalry in their shirt sleeves," as they called it. 

In 1891 I was staying in Agra, at the hotel, with 
my friend of the Delhi incident. A certain Major 
Pulford, who had come to Agra to race some ponies, 
divided us at the table d'hdte. He and I had been 



INDIA, 1890-1891 95 

neighbours for two or three days, when he asked me 
carelessly one evening what / had been doing that 
afternoon, as mv friend confessed to having taken a 
" day off." 

Now I had spent the afternoon at the Taj, and 
had made many inquiries about the tradition that 
this building had once been turned into a hospital. 
No one knew anything about it. One old Hindoo, 
evidently thinking I wished him to say " Yes,'''' re- 
membered hearing that this had been the case 
" about eigMy years ago^ This last artistic touch 
of accuracy was fatal to his bona fides, and I turned 
away in disgust. 

So I told Major Pulford my story, and we laughed 
over the well-known fact that a Hindoo of that class 
always tries to find out what you wish him to say, 
and then says it ! 

Major Pulford asked why I was so keen on the 
subject. 

" Because a very old friend of mine was badly 
wounded at Agra during the Mutiny, and from a child 
I have had the impression that he was nursed in 
the Taj." 

" No," he answered. " I am sure the Taj was never 
used as a hospital, but I think the Pearl Mosque 
may have been. This would account for the mis- 
take, probably." 

Now the point in this incident is the fact that I 
had not mentioned my friend's name to Major Pulford. 

Had the name been a more distinctive one, I might 
have mentioned it, although realising that Major 
Pulford was too young a man to have known any- 
thing about the Mutiny at first hand. 



96 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

We talked casually on the subject for a few 
minutes, and then he said : " Of course, I was a baby 
at the time, but I have read and heard any amount 
about it, naturally. My boyish hero was a fellow 
named Jones of the 9th Lancers, who was so awfully 
plucky in their celebrated charge, when surprised 
by the enemy on the Agra parade-ground. I know 
nothing about the fellow except what I have read. 
I believe he is alive still, but they say he was almost 
cut to pieces then." 

" That is the friend whom I thought had been nursed 
in the Taj,''"' was my astonished answer. 

Major Pulford's delight was unbounded to have 
come by so strange a coincidence even thus near 
to the hero of his youth. For myself, I recognised 
that I had sat next to the only man, probably then 
in India, who could have given me the accurate and 
precise details of the whole affair ! 

" I know every inch of the ground, and just where 
it all happened," he said eagerly. " Do let me drive 
you and your friend over there to-morrow in my 
buggy, and I will point out every detail." 

He did so next day, leaving me with the most 
vivid impression of the scene of my friend's gallant 
fight for life, against such overwhelming odds. 

That he should still be alive and active — nearly 
fifty years later — seems little short of a miracle ! 



CHAPTER VI 

SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 

Travelling in Sweden in the spring of 1892, I 
carried with me from England an introduction to 
the Swedish Consul at Gottenburg. One of the 
sisters of this gentleman was married to an English- 
man — a Mr Romilly — and he and his wife chanced 
to come over for a visit during my stay. 

Speaking of psychic matters one day, Mr Romilly 
told me the story of his first cousin (a well-known 
woman of title) and her Egyptian necklace. A 
present had been made to her (I think on her 
marriage) of a very beautiful Egyptian necklace 
with stones of the exquisite blue shade so well known 
by travellers in Egypt. 

These special stones, alas ! must evidently have 
been genuine, and rifled from some old tomb, for the 
owner of the necklace appeared one night by the 
lady's bedside, and warned her that she would have 
no peace so long as she persisted in wearing his 
property. 

So the lady very wisely locked up the necklace 
in her dressing-case, and fondly trusted the Egyptian 
ghost would be satisfied. 

Not a bit of it ! In a short time he appeared 
again, and told her that she would be haunted by 
his unwelcome presence so long as the necklace 

G 97 



98 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

remained in her possession. She then drove off with 
it, and deposited it with her lawyer, who locked it 
up in a tin case, doubtless with a secret smile at his 
noble client's superstitions. But Nemesis lay in 
wait for him, and the last thing Mr Romilly had 
heard upon the subject was that the lawyer himself 
was made so exceedingly uncomfortable by the at- 
tentions of the Egyptian gentleman that he was 
obliged to have necklace and tin case buried together 
in his back garden ! To have forced a lawyer into 
such extreme measures was certainly a " score " for 
the ghost ! 

A few months later, I met the heroine of the story 
at a friend's house at tea, and speaking of her 
relation, who had married a Swedish wife, and 
whom I had met in Gottenburg, I alluded discreetly 
to the story of the blue necklace. 

My companion at once endorsed it in toto, and 
did not seem at all annoyed by the fact that her 
cousin had mentioned it to me. I remember that 
Mrs Romilly " laid the cards " for me, with astonish- 
ing success, and told me she had learnt the mystic 
lore from an old Finnish nurse, who had been 
brought over from Finland by her own Swedish 
grandfather when quite a young girl, and had lived 
in the family until her death. She assured me that the 
Finns were specially gifted in all kinds of gipsy lore. 

From Stockholm we paid a visit to Russia, and 
in St Petersburg I had my first personal experience 
since leaving home. 

We had engaged, as courier during our stay in 
the city, a German who had lived there for forty 
years, named Kiintze, I think. 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 99 

We were staying at the Hotel de France, and 
this man told me one day that a celebrated French 
modiste had rooms in our hotel, having come there 
to show her beautiful Parisian costumes, and to 
take orders as usual from the Russian Royal 
Family and Ladies of the Court. He also mentioned 
the Frenchwoman's recent misfortune in hearing — 
since her arrival in Russia — that her trusted manager 
in Paris had disappeared suddenly, carrying away 
with him 100,000 francs. 

Two nights later I had gone to bed as usual about 
ten-thirty p.m., and must have slept for nearly four 
hours, when I awoke feeling the heat very op- 
pressive. It was almost the end of June at the 
time. Getting out of bed to open my window still 
farther, I gazed down upon the courtyard which 
it overlooked, noting the absolute stillness of the 
house and the hot, oppressive air outside. 

Suddenly this stillness was rent by the most 
horrible and appalling shrieks ! Peal after peal 
rang out. I have never heard anything so ghastly 
nor so blood-curdling either before or since. For 
a moment it seemed that one must be dreaming. 
What horrors, to justify such awful shrieks, could be 
taking place at this quiet hour and in this quiet, 
respectable hotel ? 

Nothing less than murder suggested itself to me, 
and I quickly crossed the room, and turned the key 
in the lock. My next thought was for my com- 
panion — the Miss Greenlow of American days. She 
was sleeping next door to me, with an intervening 
door between us. 

I hammered loudly upon this, and finally opened 



100 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

it. I knew she always locked her outer door, but 
feared she might go into the passage, not realising 
the danger in the moment of waking, and might fall 
into the murderer's hands. So I called out : " Wake 
up — wake up, Miss Greenlow ! — hut don't open your 
door. Someone is being murdered out there." 

I had heard every other door in the passage 
opening, and the scared inmates rushing to and fro, 
so there was no question of feeling bound to give 
the alarm. 

Miss Greenlow, being an extremely lymphatic 
person, was still sleeping the sleep of the just. I 
gave her a good shake at last, finding knocks and 
calls of no avail ; but she only turned over sleepily, 
murmuring : " Oh, it's all right ! I don't suppose 
there is anything much the matter — do go to bed 
again ! " 

So I returned to my own room, and as the horrible 
screams had now ceased, I opened my door very 
gently, and looked down the dimly lighted passage. 
My room was a corner one, exactly at the head of 
the wide staircase ; to the left-hand side, for anyone 
mounting the stairs. Exactly opposite my door, 
with a wide passage between, was the room which 
had been pointed out to me as belonging to the 
famous French modiste. 

Miss Greenlow was evidently the only person in 
the hotel who had slept through the horrors of that 
night, for small groups were gathered together at 
various points along the corridor, and at every door 
some scared man or woman was looking out, anxious, 
like myself, to solve the dreadful mystery. 

At that moment my eyes lighted on my special 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 loi 

German waiter talking in a hushed whisper to a 
musjig — in the usual red coat. So I beckoned to 
him, and very reluctantly he came to my door. 

Being asked in German what was the meaning of 
the shrieks we had heard, he said at once that a 
lady had been taken ill suddenly. 

The man was a bad liar, and a child would have 
seen that he was repeating a made-up story. But 
nothing more could be got out of him, so I dismissed 
him impatiently, saying : " What is the good of 
telling me such nonsense ? I shall find out for 
myself to-morrow." 

Once more I shut and locked the door, and lay for 
an hour or two thinking over the ghastly disturb- 
ance, and wondering who could have been the hapless 
victim. It was now about five a.m., and full dawn. 
As so often happens, even after the most sleepless 
night, I dozed off then, and slept for more than an 
hour, and during my sleep I dreamed — and this was 
my dream. It must first be noted that the wide 
staircase I have described as passing close to my 
room was thence continued upward to the next 
floor. In my dream or vision I saw distinctly a 
woman in a white nightgown, with dark hair stream- 
ing down her back, rushing up this second flight of 
stairs in the most distraught and reckless fashion. 
In one hand she held a knife, and was trying to stab 
herself with it, as a musjig — in crimson coat — rushed 
after her, and endeavoured to wrench it out of her 
hand. Two or three other people ran up the stairs 
behind her, but only this peasant seemed to have 
the courage or presence of mind to grapple with her. 
In a few moments, as it seemed to me, the vision, 



102 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

so startling and clear cut, faded away, and I sank 
into a dreamless sleep, I suppose, for it was past six 
A.M. when I woke finally. 

When the German waiter appeared with my break- 
fast I said rather curtly to him : " You need not 
have troubled to make up that foolish story last 
night ; I know what happened — / have seen it,'''* 

He looked very incredulous, so I went on : " The 
lady was trying to kill herself, and rushed up to the 
next floor with a knife in her hand. I saw the 
musjig run after her and force it from her." 

The man was absolutely speechless. He said not 
one syllable, either of corroboration or denial, but 
left the room as quickly as possible, looking 
scared, and certainly left the impression upon my 
mind that my vision represented what had actually 
taken place an hour or two previously. 

To my great surprise, however, our respectable 
and dependable courier, Kiintze, gave quite a dif- 
ferent version of the affair. 

He came as usual to my room to take his orders 
for the day — Miss Greenlow being present — and at 
once referred to the terrible tragedy. 

"Ah, poor lady ! you remember my telling you 
about her the other day, and how her manager had 
run away with all that money ? Now this frightful 
misfortune has happened to her, and no one knows 
if she will survive it. She is still alive, however, 
and is to be taken to the hospital at one p.m." 

" But what has happened, Kiintze ? " I said im- 
patiently, rather irritated, if the truth must be 
told, by his mysterious allusions and Miss Green- 
low's assumption of profound indifference. Of 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 103 

course, no self-respecting person, having calmly 
slept through such a tragedy, could be otherwise 
than indifferent next morning ! Kiintze's story was 
far more artistic than that of the waiter, and was 
skilfully interwoven with shreds of truth, as I dis- 
covered later. 

He said that " the poor lady " was in the habit of 
making herself a cup of tea in the middle of the 
night when wakeful ; also that she wore wide, 
hanging muslin sleeves with her night attire. She 
had risen as usual from a sleepless bed to make tea 
with her little Etna. Unfortunately, she had set 
fire to a sleeve, which at once burned up, and in a 
few moments she was enveloped in flames, owing 
to the flimsy material she wore. Then the shrieks 
began which had so thrilled our nerves. A Russian 
gentleman, sleeping near her, was awakened by the 
noise, and knowing that she was a rich woman, and 
had brought many valuables with her, he concluded 
she was being murdered ; so he rushed to the rescue 
with a revolver, found the burning woman, and 
he and the musjig at length succeeded in putting out 
the flames. 

The story was well told, and perfectly credible. 
Miss Greenlow could not resist pointing out how 
entirely it annihilated my vision. No suicide ! — 
no knife ! — no rush up the staircase ! — nothing, in 
fact, that might not have been, and, of course, must 
have been a mere freak of imagination during my 
troubled sleep. In the face of Kiintze's quiet and 
detailed statement I could only agree with her, and 
so the matter rested for some months. The poor 
woman meanwhile remained in the hospital, and 



104 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

her son and daughter were telegraphed for from 
Paris, We found them at the hotel on our return 
there, three weeks later, from Moscow. There was 
then some slight hope of ultimate recovery, but 
within six or seven weeks from the " accident " the 
unfortunate woman died from shock and exhaustion. 

From Russia we returned to Stockholm and 
Christiania, where Miss Greenlow took the steamer 
for Hull, and I went up into the Dovre Feld 
Mountains to join a Swedish friend, already men- 
tioned in my chapter on India. 

I told her my story of the poor French modiste 
and her sad and painful accident, also about my 
curiously vivid and yet inaccurate vision, and we 
discussed the latter in quite an S.P.R. spirit ! We 
were then in a very remote part of the Dovre Feld, 
where foreign papers were practically inaccessible. 

I had left my friend in Norway, and returned to 
England a week or two before receiving a very 
interesting letter from her. 

In it she said : "I have just got hold of some 
French papers, and I see that poor woman you told 
me about, has just died in Petersburg, and the real 
story has now come out. 

" It seems that it was suicide after all, so your 
vision was quite true ! 

" She had received large sums in advance for 
commissions from some of the Russian nobility, 
and had either spent or speculated with them. 
That was why she had to invent the story of an 
embezzling manager, to cover her own shortcomings. 
But the truth was leaking out in spite of her en- 
deavours, and she made up her mind to commit 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 105 

suicide rather than face the horrors of a Russian 
prison. The paper goes on to say that she chose 
a most terrible death, httle reahsing what the 
torture would be. It seems that she waited till 
the middle of the night you described, and then 
covered her whole body with oil, and set fire to it ! 
This accounts, of course, for the horrible shrieks 
you heard. In her awful agony she seized a knife — 
that she had either secreted or found in her room — 
rushed out into the passage in a blaze, and when the 
musjig tried to stop her, she ran from him, and 
attempted to stab herself as she made her way up 
the stairs. All this you seem to have seen accur- 
ately ; also the fact that the musjig pursued her 
and succeeded in wrenching the knife from her 
hands before she had injured herself with it. The 
paper mentions that a Russian gentleman had gone 
to the rescue when he heard the shrieks, but this 
was before she had got hold of the knife, and it was 
the musjig alone who saved her, in the end, from 
immediate death." 

During this Russian visit we had gone down to 
Moscow from Petersburg, and here again a curious 
adventure befell me. 

It was, as I have said, in the height of the summer, 
and one was thankful to have a large, handsome 
room, with three windows looking over the square, 
and the famous Kremlin Palace in the distance. 
My room was divided into two unequal parts, 
separated from each other by a door which was, 
during the hot season, thrown wide open and 
fastened hack securely. Between this door and the 
one opening into the outer corridor the washing 



io6 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

apparatus stood, and also a wardrobe of white 
painted deal, with a very poor lock to it, as I 
discovered later. 

On retiring to rest the first night, I locked the 
outer door, undressed in this ante-room, and finally 
hung up my gown in the wardrobe I have mentioned. 
Then, after looking out of the windows on the fast 
diminishing crowd below in the square, I went to 
bed, feeling quite cheerful, and looking forward to 
a long night's rest after a journey which had been 
hot and tiring. 

As so often happens, one was probably over-tired, 
and sleep was not to be wooed by any of the usual 
methods. In vain I counted sheep getting over a 
hedge, added a hundred up backward and forward, 
tried deep breathing, and other little " parlour 
games." It was absolutely useless. Twelve o'clock 
struck, then the half hour, and I gathered from the 
stillness below that the good Moscow citizens had 
retired to their respective homes. This seemed an 
added insult ! Then one o'clock struck, and after 
that I lay for a seeming eternity, before two strokes 
from the clock outside indicated the half hour. 
Scarcely had the reverberation ceased when I heard 
cautious sounds in the corridor, which gave me a 
good fright, and made me regret the silence I had 
found so irksome. The outer door of my room was 
quietly being opened, creaking on its hinges in the 
most ordinary and commonplace way, but evidently 
opening under a very wary hand. " Then I could not 
have locked it after aU ! " And yet I felt so convinced 
that I had done so ! Certainly I had intended to do 
so on my first night in a strange hotel I The best I 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1802 107 

could hope was that some other new arrival had 
mistaken his room, and was returning late, and con- 
sequently trying to be as quiet as possible. This 
flashed through my mind, and brought a moment's 
comfort. I expected to see a man's head round the 
open door at the loot of my bed, and to hear a 
hurried apology and still more hurried retreat. I 
say a man's head, for the footsteps, though so quiet 
and cautious, were without doubt a man's foot- 
steps. But several moments passed in horrible 
suspense. The outer door had creaked on its 
hinges and opened without a shadow of doubt. 
Where was the man ? 

The door had not closed again, so far as I could 
hear. From my bed I could not command a view 
of the smaller portion of the room, where, presum- 
ably, he must be hidden. There was nothing but 
the wash-hand stand and the wardrobe there. What 
could he be doing or waiting for ? My comforting 
supposition of a mistake in the number of his room, 
made by an innocent guest, could not be stretched 
wide enough to account for the long pause. Perhaps 
it was some robber lurking about the passages ! 
He had tried my door gently, and found it open. I 
had heard the door creak on its hinges in spite of all 
his care. Now he w^as doubtless waiting to make 
sure that this noise had not awakened me before 
beginning his operations ! 

This was the only reasonable supposition, and i 
lay in absolute terror for some minutes, fearing to 
stir or almost to breathe at such close quarters, and 
quite incapable of rising and putting an end to my 
terrible suspense. I longed to hear the next 



io8 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

" quarter " strike, but nothing relieved the dead 
silence in my room and in the streets outside. At 
long last the quarter to two struck, and something 
in the friendly tones of the massive clock relieved 
the tension and gave me courage — the courage of 
desperation — to strike a match and light my candle 
before starting on a tour of discovery. The middle 
door was fastened back, as I had found it when 
taking possession of the room. In any case, that 
was not the door which had been opened — the sound 
came from the outer door. I must find out if any- 
one were hiding in the little dressing-room ; and in 
any case, I must lock the outer door, which I had 
felt so certain I had locked on coming up to my 
room. I passed through the open inner door with 
fear and trembling. To my relief, the small apartment 
was apparently empty. The wardrobe stood partly 
open, but nothing more terrible than my own gown 
was inside it. Then I made my way to the outer 
door, which gave on to the corridor, determined to 
make sure of locking it firmly this time. After all, it 
must have been a wandering guest, who had dis- 
covered his mistake at once, and retreated noiselessly ! 

I have seldom been more absolutely dumfounded 
than when I turned the handle of that door, pre- 
paratory to locking it, and found that it was securely 
ocked already, just as I had supposed ! How could 
he hinges have creaked then, and whose cautious 
footsteps had I heard ? 

Once more my eyes fell upon the wardrobe, with 
its cheap varnish and lock. I had certainly not 
locked this overnight. Could it have creaked itself 
farther open ? It did not for the moment strike 



f 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 109 

me that the noise came from another quarter, and 
that the footsteps were still to be explained. I was 
only too thankful to find the barest apology of an 
explanation. So I locked the wardrobe as carefully 
as possible, noticing that the lock was not one of the 
first quality, and once more retired to bed, and put 
out my candle, greatly relieved. 

Scarcely ten minutes had passed (as I afterwards 
ascertained) when the whole scene was enacted 
once more ! The same cautious tread, the same 
sound of the order door creaking slowly on its hinges 
— there was nothing in the least uncanny about it 
per se. It was just the normal noise that any late 
comer would make who was thoughtful enough not 
to disturb a sleeping house. 

But my impatience got the better of my fears 
this time. I was not going to be decoyed out of 
bed a second time on a wild-goose chase. " It must 
have been that wardrobe door after all ! As to the 
footsteps, I don't know and I don't care ! The 
cheap lock must have given way, and I shall find the 
wardrobe door has swung open, I am sure." 

With this comforting assurance I turned round, 
and in a few minutes fell into a deep sleep, after the 
varied excitements of the night. 

Next morning I stepped gaily into the smaller 
division of the room to begin my toilet, and 
triumphantly turned round to convince myself of 
the truth of my theory about the wardrobe door. 
To my infinite astonishment and perplexity the 
wardrobe was securely locked, just as I had left it in 
the middle of the night. 

I have never had any explanation of this mystery ; 



no SEEN AND UNSEEN 

but I changed my fine big room for a much less de- 
sirable one that morning, and made some excuse about 
wishing for a quieter room at the back of the house. 

The next evening, sitting in my new abode with 
my travelling companion, she showed far more 
interest in my adventure than in the Petersburg 
tragedy and subsequent vision of mine. 

So much so that I invited her to take a pencil 
and see if she could get any sort of explanation of 
the mystery ; for although not at all intuitive, she 
knew something of what is called automatic writing. 

I give her narrative, not as being in the slightest 
degree evidential, but for its intrinsic interest, and 
because I am personally convinced that she had not 
sufficient imagination to have made it up on the spur 
of the moment. 

Miss Greenlow's " message " was to the following 
effect : — 

About fifty years previously, a Russian gentleman 
(an officer, I think, but am not certain of this) and 
his mistress had occupied this large front room. 
The man had spent all day at a rifle competition, 
combined with some sort of merry-making, and had 
returned home very late — at one-thirty a.m., in fact 
— ^very much the worse for drink. He had opened 
the door very carefully, trusting he should find the 
lady asleep ; but, unfortunately, she was not only 
wide awake, but extremely annoyed by his late 
return and the state in which he had come back to 
her. A desperate quarrel had ensued, and getting 
frightened by his violence, she seized his rifle, giving 
him a blow on the head with the butt end of it, 
hoping to stun him, but with no idea of murder in 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 iii 

her mind. Whether she gave a more severe blow, 
in her nervousness, than she had intended, or 
whether the rifle fell on some specially vital spot, was 
not explained in the writing. Anyway, the blow 
proved fatal — to her extreme regret and remorse. 

Under these circumstances one would have sup- 
posed that it would be more reasonable for the lady 
to haunt the room, and not the gentleman ; but I 
" tell the tale as 'twas told to us." 

It is, however, remarkable that in most of these 
stories it is the victim who appears — determined to 
enact the scene of his or her death — and not the 
murderer. 

I think we were also told, by-the-by, that I had slept 
in the room on the anniversary of the occurrence. 

It was obviously impossible to get any corro- 
boration of such a story. Two small points in it, 
however, were proved to be true. 

The Moscow hotels, as a rule, were comparatively 
modern at the time of our visit, and therefore the 
" fifty years ago " seemed highly improbable. We 
learned, however, through a few discreet questions 
later, that this particular hotel had been in existence 
so far back as fifty years, and also that rifle com- 
petitions had taken place on certain occasions in 
those far-off days. 

For the rest I claim nothing. I have truthfully 
recounted my experience without a word of ex- 
aggeration, and have never been able to account for 
it normally. 

The explanation given to us is, of course, just 
worth the paper it was written upon from any 
evidential point of view. 



CHAPTER Yl— continued 

SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 

Taking my experiences chronologically, I must 
now carry my readers back to England, where the 
autumn of this year found me in London. 

I had been asked to recommend a house for 
paying guests, well situated, in the West End of 
London, and newly started by a lady who had been 
left a widow with very slender provision. Several 
kind women had interested themselves in the case, 
and had wisely suggested thinking out a means of 
livelihood in the future rather than merely supplying 
present wants. 

It would be difficult to imagine a person less 
suited for the sort of employment chosen ; but that 
is " another story." 

I never care to recommend anything or anybody 
of which or of whom I have no personal knowledge ; 
at the same time, I was anxious to help my kindly 
acquaintance in her philanthropy, and as I had 
arranged to spend some weeks in London that 
autumn — to be near an invalid brother — it struck 
me that I might stay at the house so strongly re- 
commended, instead of taking private rooms as 
usual. "^ 

So I journeyed to Sussex Gardens, found a 
charming house, newly furnished and decorated, 

112 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 113 

and as clean as the proverbial " new pin," and, 
moreover, a very good-looking mistress of the house, 
still a youngish woman of five or six and thirty. 

She spoke most warmly of the kindness she had 
received from the lady who had given me her ad- 
dress, showed me some pleasant rooms, and the 
arrangement was quickly completed. 

I chose a small sitting-room in addition to my 
bedroom, although, as a matter of fact, this was 
scarcely necessary, as I was the first guest received. 
Only one deaf old lady appeared upon the scene 
during the six weeks I spent there. 

I had not been forty-eight hours in the house 
before I discovered that my hostess was a convinced 
and very remarkable psychic. Naturally she was 
delighted to find someone to whom she could speak 
of her various experiences without being laughed 
at or put dowTi as a lunatic. At the same time I 
am bound to confess that Mrs Peters, although 
extremely interesting, was also rather agitating, 
and certainly much too erratic to make an entirely 
satisfactory Chatelaine. She was given to reading 
" Aurora Leigh," instead of ordering dinner, and had 
to be sent for occasionally to sit at the head of the 
table, with a volume of Browning or Tennyson firmly 
clutched in her reluctant hand. Even when duly 
" found and delivered," curious things happened' 
during the meals — especially at dinner in the 
evening, when she often put down knife and fork 
and directed my attention to the far end of the 
handsome dining-room, where she was wont to see 
the ghost of her late husband. 

" Look, dear Miss Bates ! Surely you must see 



114 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

him — dear Henry, I mean. There he stands, beard 
and all, just between the sofa and the wall. I can 
see him as clearly as I see you ! " 

I am bound to say I never did see " dear Henry " ; 
but the fine tabby cat certainly saw something in 
that corner, for it would rush most frantically to 
the sofa, jump on to one end, and sit staring at 
Henry (presumably), with its tail stuck out and 
its fur rising up, glaring into the corner with a look 
of combined fear and fascination. 

My little sitting-room was invaded at all hours 
by my too interesting landlady, who would suddenly 
/emember some thrilling experience, which she 
Wished to share with me. At length I took to my 
bed for three days, not in the least ill, but simply 
for a much-needed rest in the midst of all these 
excitements. 

A day or two after emerging from this haven of 
peace, I received a visit from a young lady, whose 
parents were well known to me in Yorkshire, and 
who had recently become engaged to a very rich 
man, many years her senior ; in fact, considerably 
older than her own father, who had lately passed 
away. The daughters of this family were all de- 
Ivoted to their father, and most of the visit was 
Occupied in giving me details of his last illness, and 
ijn my sympathising with her upon his loss. It was, 
:jin fact, far more a visit of condolence than of con- 
gratulation upon her future prospects of happiness. 
As to the latter, I found it difficult to be quite 
truthful and yet conventionally ecstatic. 
I To marry a man nearly old enough to be your 
^grandfather struck me as risky, to say the least of 



SWEDEN AM) RUSSIA, 1892 115 

it, even with ' ' emollients which riches and 
position undouL .^ .., add to domestic life. 

The young woman in question did not at all 
resent my frankness on the subject, but assured me 
that her greatest consolation in thinking of her late 
father was the fact that she was about to make a 
marriage which he had always wished, and of which 
he had emphatically given his approval on his death- 
bed. " I told him I had decided upon it, just before 
he died, and he was so relieved and happy about 
it," she said simply as she turned to leave the 
room. Having mentioned that a younger sister 
was also in town, I sent a message to the latter, 
asking her to take early dinner with me on the 
following Sunday, which happened to be my only 
spare day just then. 

On the evening of this visit from the coming 
bride, I had accepted an invitation to a large 
musical party in the house of the lady who had 
begged me to interest myself in Mrs Peters. It was 
within a stone's-throw of Sussex Gardens, and I 
came down to dinner at seven-thirty p.m., intending 
to dress later, and go round there about nine p.m. 

For an hour or so before dinner I had been 
conscious of a growing despondency, to which I could 
attribute no cause, and this increased so much 
during the meal that Mrs Peters noticed it at last, 
and asked me if I were feeling unwell. 

" No — not unwell — but I am absolutely miser- 
able, and cannot imagine why." 

" Then you have not had bad news ? " was the 
next remark. " I feared you must have had, seeing 
you so silent and not able to eat anything." 



ii6 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

In answer to this I said that I had not even the 
excuse of hearing of other people's misfortunes, for 
a young lady had been calling upon me that after- 
noon, who was about to make what the world calls 
a very successful marriage. I did not, however, 
mention her name, as Mrs Peters knew none of my 
friends. 

Dinner over, I felt still so unaccountably wretched 
that I determined to give up the evening party, 
and write my excuses. Mrs Peters did her best to 
combat this decision, fearing that her kind bene- 
factress might be disappointed, and also urging 
that the evening's enjoyment would cheer me up. 
But finding me inexorable, she then said : " Well, 
if you have quite determined not to go, shall I come 
into your sitting-room and see if we can get any 
explanation of your curious feeling of depression ? " 

I closed with this suggestion, knowing Mrs Peters 
to be a really remarkable sensitive. 

So we sat in the dark for a few minutes ; and then 
I heard a soft frou-frou on Mrs Peters' silk gown, 
and knew she was tracing out words with her hand 
in a fashion of her own. 

" It is a spirit that young lady brought with her," 
she announced at length. " The spirit has remained 
here with you, and is worried about this marriage 
you spoke of. She wants you to try and break it 
off. She seems to have been nearly related to the 
lady, or perhaps a godmother ; anyway, she takes 
great interest in her." 

" Will she give a name ? " I asked. 

" Eliza is all I get," Mrs Peters replied. 

It then occurred to me that my young friend's 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 117 

name was Eliza, and that she had been so named 
after a great-aunt, to the best of my recollection ; 
but as she was invariably called Elsa, by friends 
and relations alike, it was only by chance that I 
remembered hearing her teased about her far less 
romantic baptismal name. 

I asked if no surname could be given, thinking 
at the moment that it would be Waverly — the 
family name ; but my thought was evidently not 
transferred to Mrs Peters, who said she could not 
get the name accurately, but that it was certainly 
not Waverly. I found later that the Great-Aunt 
Eliza had a name entirely different from that of her 
descendants. 

Nothing further happened on this occasion, ex- 
cept that I sent a message to " Great- Aunt Eliza " 
to say that nothing would induce me to take the 
responsibility of trying to break off any marriage, 
either by the advice of people in this sphere or in 
any other sphere. In this case I should have had 
neither the authority nor the influence to make any 
such unwise attempt. 

Sunday came round in due course, and brought 
the bride's younger sister, then a girl of twenty-four 
or twenty-five. We discussed the usual midday 
Sunday dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, 
Mrs Peters sitting at the head of the table, I on lier 
right hand, and Carrie Waverly next to me. 

Suddenly realising that my remarks to the latter 
were receiving very scant attention, I looked up, 
and found the girl's black eyes fixed in a basilisk 
stare upon our unfortunate hostess, whose own 
eyes were cast down, but who appeared uneasy and 



ii8 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

troubled by the determined gaze of my guest. At 
length the poor woman threw down her knife and 
fork, rose hastily from the dining-table, and made 
her way eagerly to the sofa at the other end of the 
room, where she lay down at full length, murmuring : 
" I can't stand it any longer ! " 

Carrie Waverly was at length induced to come 
away to my sitting-room and leave the poor woman 
in peace, which she did, asserting her complete 
innocence, and assuring me she " only wanted to see 
if she could make Mrs Peters look up at her ! " 

I explained to her that " sensitives " may be as 
much upset by this sort of thing as another person 
would be by a blow on the back. She looked in- 
credulous, and then said cheerfully : " Well, if it is 
as bad as that, don't you think you ought to go and 
see how she is ? " 

" Two for yourself and your own curiosity and one 
for her ! " I thought ; but I took the hint, and found 
Mrs Peters still prostrate on the sofa, but full of 
apologies for her sudden collapse : 

" You must have thought me so very rude," etc., 
etc. 

I reassured her on this point, and expressed 
regret that my visitor should have upset her so 
much by looking so fixedly at her. 

" It was not her fault," said Mrs Peters eagerly. 
" It was the man standing over her. He had his 
hands upon her shoulders, and was trying so hard 
to influence her, and she was resisting it all the 
time, and the whole conflict of their wills was 
thrown upon me, and I could not stand it at last — 
that was why I left the table," she gasped out. 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 119 

" Could you describe the man at all ? " 
" Quite clearly," she said. " I shall never forget 
his face — I saw him so distinctly." She then pro- 
ceeded to describe in detail the very clear-cut 
features and bushy eyebrows of Carrie Waverly's 
father, giving also his colouring, which was very 
distinctive. I suggested trying to find out what he 
wanted to say to his daughter, but this distressed 
Mrs Peters so much that I was sorry to have made 
the suggestion. 

" No ! no ! dear Miss Bates ! — don't ask me to 
do that — dear Henry never likes my taking messages 
from strangers — I have promised him that I would 
never do it without his permission. It upsets me so 
much, and I feel so weak already." 

So I came away, promising to look in later and 
see if I could do anything for her. 

Carrie was naturally greatly interested by the 
accurate description given of her father, and was very 
impatient for me to pay Mrs Peters a second visit. 

I went in presently, and found the latter standing 
up, and in a state of great excitement. She had, 
in fact, been on the point of coming to us when I 
entered. 

" Dear Henry told me to take that message after 
all," were the words with which she greeted me. 
" There was some misunderstanding between the 
father and this daughter, and he wants her to know 
that it is all right now." (This seemed to me most 
improbable, as the devoted daughters and father 
were always on terms of the greatest harmony and 
mutual understanding. Yet it froved to he quite 
true.) 



120 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

Mrs Peters continued : " He is very much upset 
about this marriage. He tells me he was so anxious 
for it when on this side, but now he sees all the 
difficulties and possible dangers. But he says it is 
too late to reconsider the step now ; only he is so 
very anxious to secure the interests of his daughter 
before she marries. He wishes to know whether her 
settlement is signed. It is not one of which he would 
have approved. And he says there are two houses, 
and one ought to be settled upon her — you must 
ask about it, dear Miss Bates. He is most decided 
and so dreadfully upset about it all, because he 
says it was he who urged the marriage upon 
her." 

I spent the following fifteen or twenty minutes 
as a sort of messenger-boy between Mrs Peters in 
the dining-room and Carrie Waverly in my sitting- 
room. Needless to say, / knew nothing at all about 
the settlements or how many houses the prospective 
bridegroom might possess^ and having no sort of 
curiosity about the financial affairs of my neigh- 
bours, it was not at all pleasant to be employed in 
this way. 

Mrs Peters, on the contrary, seemed to know 
everything connected with the estate and the 
marriage settlement, except the fact that the latter 
had not yet been signed, although reluctantly 
" passed " by both the lady's trustees. Wherefore 
this special limitation in the father's knowledge it 
is impossible to say. He certainly showed no limi- 
tation in his knowledge of the bridegroom's character 
and disposition, and gave the most elaborate and 
detailed instructions as to how his daughter should 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 121 

behave towards her husband, and where she might, 
with advantage, cultivate tact and patience. 

My advice to Miss Waverly was to say nothing 
on the subject to her sister, but she wisely, as it 
turned out, determined to take the responsibility 
of telling her everything. She telegraphed to me 
next day, asking if she might come and see Mrs 
Peters and bring the bride with her. 

This was done, and they arrived, with several 
photographs, large and small, of the father, and also 
of the bridegroom, for identification. Carrie, in 
fact, tried — a little unfairly perhaps — to make Mrs 
Peters identify the wrong person by forcing into 
notice a large photograph of the bridegroom (some 
years senior to the father), and saying carelessly : 
" There, Mrs Peters — that is the face you saw yester- 
day of my father, is it not ? " But Mrs Peters would 
have none of it. She looked staggered for a moment, 
then caught sight of the second picture, and turned 
to it with relief : " This is the face I saw, whether 
it is your father or not," she answered, with decision. 

The bride begged for a private interview with 
Mrs Peters, which lasted for a considerable time. 
Of course, I knew nothing of this interview, nor 
should I feel at liberty to speak of it if I did know. 
I may, however, be permitted to say that I have the 
bride's own assurance that the accurate knowledge 
then given her of her future husband's character- 
istics physical and mental, and the best way of 
dealing with them, " made all the difference in her 
married life." 

During that interview Mrs Peters also told her 
the number of years she would be married ; and the 



122 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

prophecy was accurately fulfilled, which is the 
more remarkable, because, as a rule, it seems im- 
possible to predicate time, even when events can be 
foreseen. 

I am happy to add that the marriage turned out 
a complete success, and that a marriage settlement 
was made more in accordance with the father's 
wishes, although neither trustees nor principal in 
the transaction, had any idea that the actual ar- 
rangements were in any way due to the strongly 
expressed wishes of a discarnate spirit. 

If this book should ever fall into their hands, and 
they should trace the story in spite of the thick veil 
I have thrown over all the circumstances, I can only 
trust that, in gratitude for the results, they may 
become reconciled with the channel through which 
these were made possible. 

People may say : " What a terrible idea that a 
father or a husband should trouble himself about 
such sordid details as money, houses, etc." 

But this is an extremely foolish remark, although 
it may appear very spiritual on the surface. It is 
surely the most natural thing in the world that a 
near relation — if permitted — should endeavour to 
secure comfort and happiness for a dearly loved 
wife or daughter ; especially when, as in the above 
case, he felt mainly responsible for a state of affairs 
which might have turned out so disastrously, save 
for his loving care and foresight, exercised as these 
were from the other side of the veil. 

At anyrate it disposes once for all of the weary 
old " Cut Bono " argument, which is so futile, and yet 
so constantly and triumphantly quoted by stupid 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 123 

people, who seem to took upon it as a patent extin- 
guisher for any psychic gifts or experiences. 

It is mainly in order to meet this senseless observa- 
tion that I have included this story in my remini- 
scences. 

Most of us are debarred from answering the " Cui 
Bono " bray, by the fact that our most helpful ex- 
periences are generally of a too intimate and often 
sacred nature to be given to a scoffing world. 

But this instance has the advantage of dealing 
entirely with material matters, and thus being on a 
level with the ordinary intelligence. 

Nobody can say in this case no good was done. It 
only remains to be deeply shocked by the undignified, 
" nay, almost blasphemous," intervention in mun- 
dane affairs of a spirit " who should certainly have 
had some more worthy occupation.'* 

It is another case of the old man and the donkey. 
If discamate spirits donH trouble about the personal 
affairs of those on earth, the " Ciii Bono " argument 
is hurled at them. If they do, they are called blas- 
phemous and irreverent ! 

The mention of the Waverly family reminds me 
of an incident which took place when I was staying 
in their house in the country, a year or two earlier 
than the time of which I am writing. I have 
reserved it purposely as a sequel to this last story, 
which is in its proper chronological setting. 

In the year 1889 I was spending a pleasant 
fortnight with the Waverlys in Yorkshire, at the 
very time when a dear old friend of mine (Mrs 
Tennant) was dying in London. I had seen her 
only a week or two before, but had no knowledge of 



124 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

her illness, as we were not in constant correspondence, 
although there was a deep and strong affection be- 
tween us. 

I did not even hear of her death, in fact, till a 
few weeks after it took place, having missed the 
announcement in the papers. When Mrs Tennant's 
sister, Mrs Lane, wrote me the details, I had left 
Yorkshire, and was staying with cousins in Wor- 
cestershire. Thinking over the dates mentioned in 
describing the illness,! realised with a shock of pained 
surprise that the final state of unconsciousness must 
have set in the very evening when I was enjoying 
myself in Yorkshire, at a large dinner-party given 
by my host and hostess. 

It seemed terrible to think that my dear and much 
loved friend should have been lying unconscious 
upon her death-bed, and that no word or sign should 
have come to me. 

Then suddenly I remembered a curious little 
incident connected with that dinner-party. 

I had been admiring a pretty little slate-coloured 
kitten belonging to the house, which was calmly 
sitting upon the grand piano after dinner, when the 
ladies were alone in the drawing-room. After the 
gentlemen joined us, I was deep in conversation 
with my host (a remarkably interesting and intel- 
ligent man), when I noticed a small black kitten 
run past my dress. Probably I should have 
remarked upon it had we been less occupied in talk- 
ing, for I am extremely fond of cats and animals in 
general. I did glance up, as a matter of fact, and 
satisfied myself that it was not the little slate- 
coloured kitty, which sat in still triumph on the 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 125 

piano. Besides, this kitten was black, not slate. 
I thought no more of it until the guests had left 
and Mrs Waverly and I were going upstairs to bed. 
She and I were very affinitive, but neither she nor 
her family had any special interest in psychology. 

On this occasion, however, she said rather mysteri- 
ously : " / think something will happen to-night to 
you.^^ A good many jokes had been made about 
the probably uncanny atmosphere of my room, and 
the various spooks who were doubtless sharing it 
with me, so I laughed, thinking this was only the 
usual family joke. But Mrs Waverly was quite in 
earnest. At first she would give no reason for her 
remark, " fearing I should tell her daughters," and 
that she would be laughed at in consequence. 

Reassured on this point, she said to me quite 
seriously : 

" Whilst you were talking to my husband this 
evening I saw a black kitten run straight across 
your dress — just opposite to me." 

" Well, of course, I saw the kitten / " I answered, 
to her surprise ; " but there is nothing very remark- 
able about a black kitten in the house." 

'' But we have no black kitten in the house, or any- 
where on the premises. Where did it go to ? You 
never saw it again ? No ; it was not an ordinary 
kitten, and I did not suppose till this moment that 
anyone had seen it but myself." 

It was a fact that no one but Mrs Waverly and I 
had seen any kitten but the slate-coloured one al- 
ready mentioned. 

Thinking over this in the light of the sad news of 
my dear old friend's death, and noting the corre- 



126 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

spondence in time between her loss of consciousness 
and the appearance of the mysterious black kitten — 
seen only by Mrs Waverly and myself — it was im- 
possible not to ask in the depths of my heart 
whether, perchance, the spirit of my faithful friend 
had been trying to send me some symbol of her 
approaching death. 

It may be objected that black cats are generally 
connected with good luck. Well, I think my dear 
" London mother," as she called herself sometimes, 
would have explained this apparent contradiction 
very simply. She had lived through much sorrow, 
and was often oppressed by sore doubts of the 
Cosmic Love. I never knew any woman with such 
strong and passionate human sympathy, and to 
such fine spirits, the world, under present condi- 
tions, must always offer terrible problems. Her 
sympathies were sometimes too keen for that robust 
faith which can always say : " God's in His heaven ! 
All's right with the world ! " Yet her last words 
were : " / am so tired, and God will understand ; 
and I am so glad to go." 

To finish my chapter on a merrier note, I will 
mention an amusing episode connected with the 
evening of the black kitten's appearance. 

Amongst the guests invited to that dinner-party 
was a clergyman-squire, a man of some means who 
had taken orders. A " squarson " is the " port- 
manteau name " for such a gentleman in Yorkshire, 
I believe ; one who combines squire and parson. 

This particular specimen of the genus was both a 
vegetarian and a celibate. The latter fact had been 
made clear to me by the many regrets expressed in 



SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892 127 

the neighbourhood that he had remained a bachelor 
owing to rehgious scruples. The vegetarianism was 
equally certain, for I had heard orders given for 
special dishes to be prepared for this guest ; and 
sitting next to him at the dinner-table, I knew that 
he had not touched either meat or game, although 
it was not a fast day. 

After dinner, when the gentlemen had joined us 
in the drawing-room, the conversation turned upon 
psychic matters and my experiences in America of 
a few years before. This extreme High Churchman 
denounced all these, " lock, stock, and barrel." 

He believed that everything might have happened 
as described, but was equally certain that the devil 
alone could have had a hand in " such goings on " ! 
Perhaps it will be wise to explain that he did not 
make use of this latter expression ! 

My host, instead of coming to the rescue, which 
he might have done, as one of " the Cloth " ; looked 
much amused when I fielded most of my adversary's 
theological balls. 

At length, being unaccustomed to such irreverent 
handling, my enemy lost his temper, and, as usual 
on such occasions, he tried to " take my wicket " 
by quoting texts against me ! 

" Well, all I can say is that everything you have 
told us is in direct opposition to Holy Writ. In 
fact, we are specially warned in the Scriptures that in 
the latter days seducing spirits shall arise ^ 

At this fatal moment, when the Theological 
Closure was descending upon my unhappy head, a 
really brilliant thought occurred to me. 

Was it a seducing spirit or a friendly intelligence 



128 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

who reminded me that my opponent had only quoted 
half the text — the half that suited him ? 

I pointed this fact out meekly. 

He looked puzzled, and probably had honestly 
forgotten what he did not wish to remember. 

" Finish the text ? What do you mean ? " he 
said irritably. 

So I finished it for him : 

" In the latter days seducing spirits shall arise, 
forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from 
meats, ''^ 

He had pressed me very hard and rather unfairly. 
Still, the counsel of perfection would have been to 
refrain from the comment that, if / were a celibate 
and vegetarian, it was not the text I should have 
chosen with which to clinch an argument ! 



AN INTERLUDE 

I HAVE headed this chapter an Interlude, for the 
following reason : — 

It is the only one in this book which does not 
record a personal experience. 

The opportunity came to me at Florence, two years 
ago, of hearing one of the best old-fashioned Christ- 
mas ghost stories I ever came across ; also a ghost 
story which has two rather unique advantages. 
First, it has never been published before ; secondly, 
the percipient was the matron of a boys' school (a 
well-known one), and wrote out her experiences 
within twelve hours of their occurrence. 

Now, the matron of a large boys' school must, of 
necessity, be an exceptionally practical woman, and 
her daily experiences can scarcely tend to encourage 
undue Romance or Imagination. 

When I add that this story was given to me, and 
a copy of the original letter placed in my hands, 
by a sister of two of the schoolboys who were 
under the matron's supervision, I shall have 
cleared the way for my ghost to appear upon the 
scene. 

I must add, however, that I met this sister, a 
young widow, in Florence, two years ago. She then 
told me this story, finding that I was intimately 
acquainted both with the county and the small 
county town where it happened. 

I 129 



130 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

The matron had gone there for the prosaic pur- 
pose of taking the baths for her rheumatism. 

The adventure took place in the early morning of 
14th April 1875, and was recorded, within a few 
hours, in a long letter written by the percipient to a 
favourite cousin. 

My friend, Mrs Barker's brothers being at school 
at the time, begged to be allowed to read this letter 
and take a copy of it. The copy was made by their 
sister — then a young girl — and I have it in my hands 
at the present moment of writing. 

It is, of course, necessary to change the name of 
the county and town, as the old family mansion, 
let in lodgings in 1875, has since then been sold and 
turned into a boarding-house. 

Mrs Barker's mother made an expedition to this 
town, a few years ago, to verify the facts, and went 
over the house, which has been considerably altered 
and reconstructed inside since 1875. 

The small park mentioned in the story is now built 
over entirely, as the town has increased in popularity, 
owing to its baths, and the family portraits here 
mentioned have been removed since the house was 
sold. 

I will now quote verbatim from the matron's letter, 
written on the morning of her experiences . 

"The Priory, Grantwich. 
'' 14th April 1875. 

" My dear Edie, — When you asked me once for 
a ghost story, I daresay you as little expected, as I 
did, how soon I should have to reveal to you an ex- 
perience which will doubtless give you, as it has me. 



AN INTERLUDE 131 

much ground for thought and speculation about 
those mysterious laws which rule the spirit world. 

" How true it is that Thought and Feeling annihilate 
Time and Space ! Since last night, I seem to have 
lived through half a lifetime, such an effect have 
its events had upon my inner life. But before I 
begin to relate the strange circumstances I have to 
tell you, I must describe to you more particularly 
this house in which they happened. 

" I think I told you that ' The Priory '—where I 
am now lodging — is an old mansion, belonging to the 
Carbury family. For some years past, it has been let 
to the present occupiers who make the rent by letting 
lodgings. Some ancient pieces of furniture remain, 
and a great many portraits, none of the earliest date, 
but a handsome and respectable collection — soldiers, 
bishops, and judges, in their uniforms, robes, and 
wigs, and ladies with powdered hair, hoops, and trains. 

" Of these portraits, two have engaged my attention, 
especially, from the first moment of seeing them, but 
I am not going to speak of them yet ; my first object 
is to give you an idea of the house, or rather that part 
of it with which my story is connected. 

" I think I have told you that the grand staircase 
goes up from the inner hall, and that round the stair- 
case runs a gallery ; in this gallery and in the hall 
below, are hung most of the portraits. 

" On the first turn and landing of the staircase, 
there is a door opening into a trellised walk which 
leads into the garden. On a level with this door is 
a large window which looks on to sweeps of soft 
turf, shaded by fine trees. 

" Standing often to look from this window, as I 



132 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

passed up and down the staircase, one tree has always 
riveted my attention. It is a large old plane-tree, 
standing by itself, and having a strange, melancholy, 
decayed look about it. I noticed — why, I cannot 
imagine — that on one side of it the ground was bare 
and black, though everywhere else the grass was 
green and fresh. I mention this, because it had 
struck me before the strange events occurred which 
I am going to tell you. 

" You must now go with me to the top of the 
staircase. Just at the top, on your right hand, hangs 
one of the portraits I mentioned. It is a life-sized 
painting of Captain Richard Carbury, who landed, 
on the 19th September 1738, in the Colony of 
Georgia, with General Oglethorpe's regiment. 

" Opposite to this, on the other side of the gallery, 
is the portrait of a lady, with black, resolute brows 
and full, voluptuous mouth and chin. vShe has a 
high colour, an exquisite hand and arm, and an 
Amazonian bearing. 

" Passing from the gallery, you enter a long pas- 
sage, leading to other passages and staircases, with 
which we have nothing to do. 

" I only want you now to become acquainted with 
my own rooms. As you enter the passage from the 
gallery, two doors open, one on either hand. To 
the right is my sitting-room, a square, cheerful room, 
looking on the street ; to the left is my bedroom, 
which will require a more particular description. 

" It is a large, low room. As you enter from the 
passage, the window, which looks into the garden, 
is opposite to you. In the middle of the wall to your 
right hand stands the bed, and opposite to that, 



AN INTERLUDE 133 

the fireplace, and, as you will see, if you have taken 
in my description, just at the back of the portrait of 
the lady with the black eyebrows, is another door. 
Opposite to this laist is yet another, which caught 
my attention when I first entered the room from a 
peculiarity about it. The upper part of this door 
is of glass, rendered opaque by being washed or lined 
with some red substance. 

" As soon as I was alone in the room I tried to 
open this door, but it was firmly fastened. I don't 
know why I should have felt disquieted by this 
circumstance, but certainly I did feel annoyed. I 
thought at first that it probably opened into a 
dressing-room. There must have been a strong light 
behind it, for a red light always fell on that side of 
the room through the coloured glass, and I could see 
that red light in the morning, before any light pene- 
trated the window-blind. 

'* I think I have now told you all that is necessary 
for understanding my experience. 

" I must ask you to remember that yesterday was 
the thirteenth of April. I went to bed about eleven 
o'clock, and soon fell asleep. I could not, however, 
have slept long before I woke with an unusual 
feeling that something strange was going to happen. 

" I awoke, not as one does in the morning, with a 
drowsy resolve not to go to sleep again because it is 
time to get up, but as one awakes when a journey 
or some similar event is imminent, for which one's 
faculties have to be clear, and one's body active 
and alert. I was rather wondering at and enjoying 
the unusual clearness and energy of thought of which 
I felt capable, when the clock in the hall began 



134 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

striking, and, almost at the same moment, the clock 
of the old Church of St Andrew began striking also. 

" I knew that both were striking twelve, though I 
did not count the blows, but just as the last stroke 
of the church clock died away, another sound caught 
my ear. 

" The door by the fireplace gave a loud crack and 
then opened, as if with some difficulty. 

" The red door at the same time rattled, as if some- 
one were trying vainly to open it. The room had 
previously been dark, but I now plainly saw a tall 
figure come through the doorway and stand near the 
foot of the bed. There was a dull, yellowish light 
round the figure, which illumined it, leaving the rest 
of the room in darkness ; but this yellow light, I 
perceived, became red at one point of the figure's 
left side, and shone down on the floor with a red glow, 
like that which came through the opposite door. 

" The apparition stood quite silent whilst I looked 
at it. The features and figure were familiar to me for 
they were those of Captain Richard Carbury, in the 
portrait, who had gone out to Georgia with the 
regiment of His Excellency, General Oglethorpe ! 

" As soon as I was sure of this, I said : ' You 
are Captain Richard Carbury ? ' 

" The apparition nodded. 

" ' Why do you come to me ? ' I said. ' Cannot 
you speak ? ' 

" He seemed to have some difficulty in doing so, 
btit after two or three efforts, such as one makes to 
move a rusty hinge, he parted his lips, and said : 
* Yes ! I am Richard Carbury, and I am come to 
make you a witness.' 



AN INTERLUDE 135 

" ' A witness of what ? ' I said. ' Can I be of use 
to you ? You come from the spirit world. Is it 
then permitted to mortals to have personal inter- 
course with spirits ? ' 

" He held up his hand as if to silence me. 

" ' Listen to me/ he said. ' You are not frightened 
of me ? ' 

" ' No,' I replied ; nor did I feel the slightest awe 
or fear. I felt stimulated, a kind of electricity ran 
through my veins — I longed earnestly to learn 
something of the mysterious realm from which he 
came, but I had no vulgar or superstitious fear. 

" ' Nor need you have any dread,' he returned. 
' I have no wish nor power to hurt you, but you must 
listen to my story. Once in fifty years I am allowed 
to leave my grave and revisit the scene of my 
tragical death, and this must always be on the 14th 
of April, which is the anniversary of the event. ^ I 
am also permitted to recount my story if I find any- 
one sleeping in this room who is willing to listen to 
me. Are you willing ? ' 

" I replied that I should gladly hear what he had 
to tell, but would he allow me to ask him one ques- 
tion ? 

" He inclined his head in assent, and I said I had 
always thought that the spirits of the dead, if they 
were allowed to appear on earth, came with shadowy 

^ There is evidently some mistake here in the figures given by the 
ghost or received by the matron. If his death took place in 1741 
(three years after landing in Georgia), his first spirit return was due in 
1791, the second, 1841, and the third, not till 1891. It appears to have 
been anticipated by sixteen years, if the dates given are correct. A 
friend suggests that "once in fifty years" does not necessitate exact 
intervals of fifty years. 



136 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

and skeleton forms. Why did he appear with flesh 
hke a Hving man ? 

" ' Ah ! ' he said, ' that is owing to the pecuUarity 
of my grave. I am buried in salt.' 

" ' Have you anything more to ask ? ' said my 
visitor. 

" ' Nothing more at present,' I replied. ' I am 
ready now to hear your story.' 

" ' I will make it as short as possible and not detain 
you long. You have noticed my portrait in the 
gallery ? ' 

" * Yes.' 

" ' And that of the lady opposite, my cousin, 
Lucretia Carbury ? ' 

" ' Certainly.' (Here the red door was violently 
shaken). 

" ' She cannot open it,' said Captain Carbury, 
' it is sealed.' 

" ' When I went out to Georgia,' he resumed, ' in 
1738, I was engaged to be married to her ; we had 
been betrothed by our parents in our childhood, and 
family reasons made it almost a necessity that we 
should be united, but as we grew up neither of us 
was very anxious to fulfil the engagement, and, to 
tell the truth, I was glad of the summons to join my 
regiment. However, after three years in that 
distant colony, I came home, having made up my 
mind I would marry Lucretia and settle down on 
the family property — which could only be enjoyed 
by that means — for we were the only representatives 
of the family, and the property was so left by our 
fathers that only by marrying could we enter into 
possession. Either by marrying or by the death of one 



AN INTERLUDE 137 

of us ; when the whole of the property would go to the 
other. I knew that Lucretia was at the old house at 
Grantwich, and I came straight to her. 

" ' I had written to say when she might expect me, 
and she received me with apparent kindness and 
agreed to all my propositions about our marriage. 
I arrived late at night, and she let me into the house 
herself and got food for me. We supped together, 
and she pledged me in a cup, which I now know was 
drugged to make me sleep heavily. 

" ' I then retired to my room — this room, this bed, 
on which you now lie ! 

" ' What I am now going to tell you has been 
made clear to me since ; at the time I was conscious 
of nothing. As soon as I got into bed, I fell asleep, 
and whilst I thus slept Lucretia came through that 
door (pointing to the red door opposite), and stabbed 
me to the heart. I will show you the instrument 
with which she did it, if you like.' 

" ' Pray do,' I said, and he unbuttoned his scarlet 
uniform coat and drew from his left side a slender 
dagger or stiletto. 

" I looked at it with great interest and asked if 
I might take it in my hand. 

" ' Certainly, if you wish it,' he said, ' but I do not 
advise you to touch it. It is rusty now from the 
salt, but I assure you it was bright and keen when 
she drove it into my heart. The stroke was so 
cleverly aimed that I died instantly. Lucretia 
then made a signal, which was answered by the 
the entrance of a man, and between them they 
carried my body through the door by which I 
entered to-night.' 



138 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

" He paused, and I thought he looked more 
ghastly. ' Is anything the matter ? ' I asked. 

" ' I am thinking,' he answered, ' that I can show 
you the rest, if you will follow me, but I must tell 
you that when we leave this room and enter the 
gallery, it is possible the murderess will follow us. 
Shall you be afraid ? ' 

" ' Not in the least,' I said, ' I will follow you with 
pleasure, but you must allow me to put something on, 
as I am suffering from rheumatism, and am afraid 
of the cold and damp.' 

" ' By all means,' said Captain Carbury. ' I will 
wait for you in the gallery.' 

" I then got up and put on my dressing-gown and 
slippers. Whilst I was doing so, I heard a rustling 
in the passage as o< a woman passing slowly along. 
I found Captain Carbury, and followed him along the 
gallery without looking round, but when we reached 
the end of the gallery and turned to go down the 
first flight of stairs, I saw the lady with the black 
brows — whom I now knew to be Lucretia Carbury, 
the murderess — standing in the doorway, between 
the gallery and the passage. 

" ' I do not think she can come any farther,' said 
my guide, and he opened the door leading from the 
staircase into the garden. 

" ' I am showing you just where they brought me,' 
said he. 

*' ' Who was the man ? ' I asked. 

" ' I never knew his name, but she married him 
afterwards.' 

" He then moved across the lawn to the hare spot 
under the plane-tree. Here he stopped, and, pointing 



AN INTERLUDE 139 

downwards, showed me on the bare ground an exact 
outline of the dagger which he had drawn from his 
side. 

*' ' Here they dug my grave and here they buried 
me ; a salt spring washes over me.' 

" At this moment the great clock of St Andrew 
struck ONE. 

" ' All that you have told me is very sad and 
strange,' I said, ' but now, will you allow me to ask 
you why you have appeared to me ? Is there 
cmything you want done on earth that I can do ? 
Is there any restitution to be made, or justice to be 
administered ? Anything that you require, I am 
ready to do, if you will grant me one favour when 
you return to the spirit realm.' 

" I had been speaking with my eyes fixed on the 
ground, but now, happening to raise them, I was 
surprised to see that my companion appeared to be 
sinking into the ground. 

" ' My time is up,' he said. ' Remember ! ' — and, 
as his head disappeared, his words came in a hollow, 
sepulchral voice from beneath that spot of black 
earth — ' remember you are my witness ! ' 

" I was left standing alone under the plane-tree, 
with the thought, that in returning to my room, I 
might probably meet the restless spirit of Lucretia 
Carbury. 

" Nothing of the kind, however, occurred. I 
passed through the doors that had opened at the 
touch of Captain Carbury, and I noticed that they 
closed behind me without any effort on my part. I 
regained my bed, and almost immediately fell asleep. 
All had passed so naturally, and as a matter of course, 



140 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

that only when I woke this morning, and thought 
over the events of the night, did I reahse that I had 
passed through such an experience as is given to 
few human beings. 

" You see, dear Edie, that my narrative has 
taken so long to write that I have no time to speak 
of other things, even if I could bring my mind to 
think of anything else, which, I confess, I should 
have great difficulty in doing. — ^Ever your very 
affectionate, " M. Porter." 

Copied verbatim from Miss Porter's letter, written 
on the morning of 14th April 1875. 

So ends the story, with apologies to the S.P.R. ! 

I claim nothing for it beyond the following facts : 

The Priory still exists at Grantwich, and is known 
to have been the family mansion of the Carbury 
family. 

Miss Porter was undoubtedly matron of the school 
where my friend's brothers were educated. She was 
a woman of unblemished character and truthfulness, 
and would certainly not have invented this long and 
detailed account of her personal experiences within 
a few hours of their occurrence. 

My friend most certainly copied this letter, which 
her brothers had obtained leave to read, from their 
school matron — Miss Porter herself. 

Lastly, my friend, Mrs Barker's mother (who is 
still alive), verified the existence of the Priory (as 
I have called it) in the town of Grantwich, and it 
had been turned into a boarding-house at the time 
of her visit, having been previously let in lodgings. 



AN INTERLUDE 141 

Also she found that Captain Richard Carbury was 
supposed to have died in Georgia in the year 1741, as 
is inferred in the story. 

As the murderess and her accompHce alone seem 
to have been aware of his return on that fateful 
night, this would be the natural opinion of the world. 

As an old associate of the S.P.R., and quite con- 
versant with their methods, two criticisms of the 
story at once suggest themselves, in addition to the 
confusion of dates, which might perhaps be excused, 
owing to the abnormal nature of the interview de- 
scribed. But the obvious Podmorian remark would 
be that the whole adventure was a dream on the 
part of Miss Porter, induced by her interest in the 
two family portraits she had seen, and the curious 
sensations she had experienced in looking at a 
specially gloomy tree in the park. 

This would certainly cover the ground, but it 
proves, perhaps, rather too much. 

It requires very robust " Faith in Unfaith " to 
suppose that a sensible, practical woman, suffering 
from rheumatism, should carry her dream to the 
verge of following her dream man into the garden 
and grounds of the house. It may be urged that 
she drea^nt all this also, but " that way madness 
lies." We must be able to formulate that certain 
acts of ours took place during full consciousness, 
or daily life would become impossible and moral 
responsibility would cease. 

Miss Porter might have been in a dream all through 
the night — granted. 

But in these cases it is the " morning that brings 
counsel." We are all aware of the extraordinary 



142 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

lifelike dreams which, with the return of normal 
memory, we recognise as dream visions, no 
matter how vivid and credible they may have 
appeared to us in the night. 

But with Miss Porter this normal process was 
reversed. She went to sleep quite calmly, and 
first realised, upon waking in the morning, how 
thoroughly abnormal her experiences had been. 

I pass on to the next criticism, which a little 
" editing " on my part could have averted : 

" Is it credible that a woman, only just recovering 
from the surprise and marvel of such an experience, 
should write about it, within a few hours, to a favour- 
ite cousin, as if she were preparing a story for The 
Family Herald ? " 

I confess that this was my own feeling when the 
record was placed in my hands. 

We must, however, remember — ^first, that the 
percipient was obviously a lady of great courage, 
or she would not have followed her ghost into the 
garden ; secondly, that she was a keen observer 
and very accurate in details. Probably, many 
generations of schoolboys, passing through her 
hands, may have quickened her perceptions in 
both these wa>3. 

As for the stilted style, that presents little difficulty, 
when one remembers that people of a certain rank 
in life never use a short word when a long one will 
answer the purpose ! 

I claim nothing for the story, beyond the points 
already mentioned. These are matters of fact. 

Each one must interpret it according to his own 
views and prejudices. 



AN INTERLUDE 143 

It is quite enough for me to be responsible for the 
truth and accuracy of my own experiences, to which 
we will now return. 

't^ote. — Since writing the above I have consulted 
the " Century Encyclopaedia," and find there : 

" Oglethorpe — James Edward, born in London, 
December 21st, 1696, died at Cranham Hall, Essex, 
England, 1785. An English General and Philan- 
thropist. He projected the Colony of Georgia for 
insolvent debtors, and persecuted Protestants ; con- 
ducted the expedition for its settlement, 1733, and 
returned to England, 1743." 

The apparent discrepancy between the date 1733 
given in the Encyclopaedia, and the 1738 of Captain 
Carbury's ghostly narrative, may be due to one of 
two causes : 

The young girl copying Miss Porter's letter may 
have mistaken a three for an eight rather easily. 

Again, Captain Carbury did not state that he 
landed with General Oglethorpe, 19th September 
1738, but with General Oglethorpe's regiment. 
This latter may have been a reinforcement sent out 
to the General after his first landing in the Colony. 



CHAPTER VII 

LADY CAITHNESS AND AVENUE WAGRAM 

Having spent the winter months of 1894 (from 
January to April) in Egypt, I was returning thence 
in the latter month with my friend Mrs Judge of 
Windsor. Our route was via Paris, and I had ar- 
ranged to spend a week there in the same hotel as 
the young Swedish lady whom I first met in India, 
and who has been referred to more than once in this 
record. 

She told me she had made the acquaintance that 
winter of the famous " Countess of Caithness and 
Duchesse de Pomar," and thinking it would interest 
me to meet this lady, she had asked for permission 
to introduce me to her. 

As it turned out, Madame Briigel was unable to 
accompany me to the house, having several engage- 
ments for the afternoon, but she promised to " put 
in an appearance " later. So Mrs Judge and I 
drove off to the well-known mansion in the Avenue 
de Wagram, and were received very cordially by 
Lady Caithness. 

I had once tried to read a very abstruse and 
mystic book by this lady, and had heard her spoken 
of as a more or less hopeless lunatic, " who imagined 
herself Mary Queen of Scots," and so forth. 

Otherwise I went without prejudice, and being 

144 



LADY CAITHNESS .S: AVENUE WAGRAM 145 

accustomed to judge for myself in such matters, 
came to the conclusion that Lady Caithness was an 
extremely shrewd woman, with her head remarkably 
" well screwed on," as the saying is. As regards 
her claims to be Mary Queen of Scots, I never heard 
these from her own lips, although I saw her daily 
for a week, and we had many interesting talks. 

She certainly did claim to be in very close relations 
with the ill-fated Queen of Scotland, but I do not 
know what views she may have held privately as to 
varied manifestations of the one spirit. I have 
heard Lord Monkswell propound an interesting 
theory, with Archdeacon Wilberforce in the chair, 
to the effect that as one short earth life gave small 
scope for spiritual experience and development, he 
thought it quite possible that the same spirit might 
have several bodily manifestations simultaneously, 
and that the judge and the criminal might conceiv- 
ably be one and the same individual in two per- 
sonalities ! 

It is possible that Lady Caithness may have had 
some such view, not theoretically (as was the case 
with Lord Monkswell), but as a matter of conviction, 
and apart from the limits of Time and Space involved 
in the conception of the latter. 

I can only say that I never heard her speak of Mary 
Queen of Scots except as an entity, quite distinct 
from herself. But that she carried the " Marie " 
culte to great extremes is an undoubted fact. 
The hall and rooms on the ground floor of the 
Avenue Wagram House were arranged and furnished 
in close imitation of Holyrood Palace. I counted 
over fifty miniatures and other pictures of the 

K 



146 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

Scottish Queen in the Countess's beautiful bedroom 
alone, and later on shall have to speak more 
definitely of one life size and exquisitely painted 
portrait of the Queen. 

But to return to this first reception. 

I must confess that a somewhat inconveniently 
keen sense of humour found only too much nourish- 
ment on this occasion. 

The Countess was magnificently dressed, as was 
usual with her, in priceless lace, falling over head 
and shoulders, and a beautiful tiara of various 
coloured jewels arranged over the lace. This was 
eccentric perhaps, considering the occasion, but 
not laughable. Lady Caithness, in addition to 
geniality, had enough quiet dignity to carry off the 
lace and jewels with success. I was chiefly amused 
by the attitude of adoring humility and flattering 
appreciation shown by the numerous ladies already 
assembled when we arrived. Only one man was 
present, and he was a priest. Later I learned to 
appreciate the friendliness of the Abbe Petit and to 
admire his intellectual courage and manliness. 

For the moment, seeing him surrounded by these 
female worshippers, hanging upon his lips as he 
discoursed to us about new readings of old truths, 
one was irresistibly reminded of certain scenes in 
Moli^re's " Femmes Sav antes.'''' 

A lively little American lady (married to an 
Italian count) plied him with numerous questions in 
fluent French, spoken with an atrocious accent. 
Finally, she wished to hear the Abbe's views upon 
Melchisedech ! In the midst of other questions 
and answers, the kindly little man managed to turn 



LADY CAITHNESS & AVENUE WAGRAM 147 

round to her with a cheery " Ah, Madame la Com- 
tesse ! pour le Melchisedech — nous reviendrons tout 
de suite cl Melchisedech / " All the affairs of the 
religious universe were being wound up at a similar 
pace and in like fashion, and this final word of 
cheerful assurance would have proved absolutely 
disastrous to me had I not been sitting close to my 
friend and able to whisper to her : " Please dig 
your nails into my wrist — hard.'' Any bodily pain 
was preferable to the hysterical laughter which had 
been so long suppressed and seemed now imminent. 

But there was worse to come ! 

An Englishwoman, the very type of the character- 
istic British spinster, turned round, and addressed 
M. I'Abbe in laboured and extremely British 
French (I must leave the accent to be imagined 
and supplied by my reader) : 

" Mais, Monsieur I'Abbe ! c'est le Protestantisme 
que vous nous enseignez la." 

He turned round upon her in his wrath : 

" Mais, Madame — ou Mademoiselle." (No print 
can convey the utter scorn and contempt of this 
last word.) 

The rest of the sentence was lost to us in the loud 
laugh of the genial, good-tempered woman : " Moi, 
Mademoiselle ! J'ai ete mariee vingt ans et j'ai 
six enfants ! " 

The whole scene was too funny for words, and, 
with the exception of this good lady, all present 
took themselves as seriously as a University don ! 

It was a real relief when the solemnity of the 
reception broke up and we were ushered into the 
adjoining dining-room for an excellent tea. Here 



148 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

I came upon my Swedish friend, who had only just 
arrived, and " missed all the fun." She told me 
there was to be a seance held in the house next day, 
and that she had been asking the Countess if I might 
not be present. " It might amuse you, Kat ! " 
was her irreverent way of putting it. " Unfortun- 
ately, there seems to he some difficulty about it.'*^ 

At this moment Lady Caithness came up, and 
cordially expressed her regrets that she could not 
accede to Madame Brtigel's suggestion. 

" Had you been staying until next week. Miss 
Bates, I would gladly have arranged for it, but to- 
morrow is a very special occasion. As a matter of 
fact, I have promised M. Petit that no one shall be 
present except himself and me, and the two female 
mediums, of course. On Wednesday we are to 
have a crowded meeting here — all the well-known 
people in Paris will come — and M. I'Abbe will read 
his paper explaining that he can no longer blind his 
eyes to the new light breaking upon the world 
through scientific discovery, etc., but that he 
remains a loyal son of the Church, if the Church will 
allow him to do so. It is, of course, a very trying 
and anxious ordeal ; for many priests will be present, 
also a cardinal and one or more of our bishops. 
So the seance to-morrow will be specially devoted to 
receiving last instructions for the paper he is about 
to read, and some words, we trust, of encouragement 
and hope." 

Of course, I hastened to assure Lady Caithness of 
my full comprehension of her point, and added that 
I was only sorry she should have been asked to alter 
her arrangements on my account. 



LADY CAITHNESS & AVENUE WAGRAM 149 

" But you will join us on Wednesday at the meeting, 
I trust ? It will be held at three p.m., in a large room 
on the ground floor, which is arranged for such 
gatherings. I shall expect you then, so we will 
not say good-bye." 

This was heaping coals of fire on my head ; for 
so observant a woman as Lady Caithness must have 
noticed my difficulty in keeping a grave face earlier 
in the afternoon ! 

Now comes a curious point. As we left the house 
Madame Briigel in expressing disappointment about 
the next evening, added : " And yet somehow I 
think you will go after all." 

" Yes," I said involuntarily. " I believe I shall 
go, but I cannot think how it will come about ; 
nothing could be more decided than what we have 
just heard, and I cannot possibly put off my journey 
to England the end of this week." 

I think we were both a little disappointed when no 
letter arrived by the morning's post. " Local 
letters often come by second post," urged my friend, 
who was very keen upon her presentiment. 

A long morning at the Louvre prevented my 
reaching home till one p.m., when the dejeuner h la 
fourchette was half way through its course. No 
letter on my plate ! So Madame Briigel and I 
agreed that the wish must have been father to the 
thought with both of us, and put the matter out of 
our heads once for all. 

At two-thirty p.m., however, a depeche letter ar- 
rived for me. 

Lady Caithness wrote to beg that I would make a 
point of being with her that evening by nine p.m. " You 



150 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

will think this very inconsistent with what I told you 
yesterday," she wrote, " but I said only what was 
the exact truth, as matters then stood. It is the 
Queen herself who has communicated with me this 
morning, and insists upon your being present this 
evening. The Abbe and I can only bow to this 
decision. I need not tell you how pleased I shall be 
personally to greet you this evening." 

I was again shown into the spacious bedroom of 
the Countess, where she " received " in general, 
quite after the manner of the French kings in the 
days of the old monarchy. 

Her bed was quite a State bed too, with its beauti- 
ful silk furnishings and heavy velvet hangings. On 
the wall behind this, was a very valuable fresco 
painting, representing Jacob's ladder, with the 
angels ascending and descending, executed by a 
famous modern artist. 

We soon descended to the ground floor, and passing 
through the large lecture-room, of which Lady 
Caithness had spoken, and which had sufficient gilt 
and cane chairs to seat a large audience ; we stepped 
down some marble stairs into a small but exquisitely 
appointed room. It was a sort of chapel, in fact, 
built " by the Queen's instructions," and used for 
all purposes and occasions of direct communication 
with her. A general impression remains with me of 
rare woods and exquisite marbles, and the walls 
were hung with framed tapestries representing 
various scenes in the Queen's life. 

To me the most striking and beautiful thing in 
the room was a full-length, life-sized portrait of 
Mary herself, so arranged that a hidden lamp threw 



LADY CAITHNESS cS: AVENUE WAGRAM 151 

its soft light on the features; whilst the hanging velvet 
curtains of deep crimson on either side concealed 
the frame of the picture, and conveyed the illusion 
that a living woman was standing there ready to 
receive her guests. 

I have never seen anything more perfect than the 
way in which this impression was conveyed, without 
a jarring note of sensational effect. 

The two French women mediums were already in 
the room, and I am bound to say they did not attract 
me pleasantly nor impress me very favourably. 
They were mother and daughter, and " Harpy " 
was written large over either countenance. Doubt- 
less they were very good mediums, in spite of this 
fact. They 77iust have been so, unless one supposes 
that Lady Caithness and the Abbe Petit were them- 
selves abnormally strong sensitives ; in which case 
one would have thought this extraneous help would 
have been unnecessary. 

We sat down at a fairly large wooden table, 
polished, but without covering of any kind, and 
having only one solid support to it, coming from the 
centre, passing down as a single wooden pillar, 
and spreading out in the usual fashion at the bottom. 
I had noted this on first entering the room. 

The two women sat together on my right-hand 
side. On my left was the Abbe, and the Coun- 
tess sat exactly opposite to me, with a printed 
alphabet pasted on to a card, and a long pencil as 
pointer. 

This made up the party. At a side table, placed 
some distance away, sat a pleasant young French 
lady, who was writing automatically all the time ; 



152 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

a secretary to the Countess, I believe. This young 
lady had no possible connection with the table. 

The seance began with a few words of prayer from 
the Abbe for light and guidance. 

The process was as follows : — First, the Countess 
and then I took the printed alphabet, and pointed 
silently and at a fair pace to the letters, going on 
from one to the other without pause. At the letter 
needed the table did not rise, but gave a sound 
more like a bang than a rap. I have never heard 
anything quite so loud and definite in my long 
investigation. The sound seemed to come from 
within the wood, as in ordinary " raps," when these 
are genuine, but it was far louder and more rapid 
and decided than the usual seance rap. There was 
no hesitation, no gathering up of force. Any 
amount of vitality was evidently present, and the 
intelligence, from whatever source, was unerring. 
The Countess and I were the only two persons who 
held the alphabet and pointed, and when she held it 
the mediums could not have seen the letters from 
their position at the table with regard to hers. Yet 
the letters were banged out (I can use no other 
expression) with absolute accuracy, and at a pace 
which, quick to start with, became more and more 
rapid as we wearied of the monotonous task and 
handed the alphabet to each other in turn. 

When the name of God or of Our Lord came, 
only the first letter was indicated, and then the table 
swayed slowly to and fro in a very reverent and 
characteristic way for a few seconds ; after which 
we began the alphabet again fo the next word. 

When these loud bangs came I could trace the 



LADY CAITHNESS cS: AVENUE WAGRAM 153 

reverberation in the wood, and it seemed to me 
practically impossible that the Harpies could be 
producing them by any unlawful methods, whilst 
sitting in full light and with immovable faces, the 
daughter writing down the letters as quickly as these 
were indicated. 

One did not feel quite comfortable about making 
investigations in a private house without being 
invited to do so. 

Again, if the women were tricking, and I caught 
them at it, there was always the chance of a disagree- 
able scene with people of their class. 

On the other hand, it was losing a great oppor- 
tunity, to refrain, as a mere matter of courtesy. 
Also I comforted myself by thinking that if anj^one 
needed to feel ashamed it would be the ones who 
cheated, and not the detective. 

So I pushed my chair a little nearer to the table, 
and the next time the Countess took the alphabet 
from me and the bangs were in full swing, I put my 
foot cautiously but very effectually entirely round 
the one leg of the table, moving it also up and down 
freely. Not a vestige of another foot, nor even of 
the flimsiest particle of dress or other obstruction ! 
I could positively and distinctly hear the reverbera- 
tion of the loud bangs on the wood, between me and 
the centre of the table, w'hilst my own leg and foot were 
firmly embracing the single wooden pillar upon which 
the latter stood. So the Harpies were justified, so 
far as this one phenomenon was concerned. The 
letters written down so rapidly by the daughter on 
large sheets of paper '^resented an apparently hope- 
less jumble, but when the sitting was over at the 



154 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

last, the Abbe and I were able to make out the words 
and sentences without great difficulty (he being 
accustomed to the task), and we then found a long, 
coherent, and at anyrate perfectly sensible, message 
addressed to him, and referring to the points of his 
coming discourse. This had to be proved upon its 
own merits, and without prejudice, arising from the 
fact that St Paul's name was given as the author. 
It was quite as helpful as some of the Apostle's 
letters, with the advantage of being up to date as 
regarded the question in hand. After all, the Abbe 
was about to embark upon an enterprise requiring 
much courage and great tact, in the forlorn hope 
that the walls of narrow Orthodoxy and Priestcraft 
might fall down before the trumpets of advancing 
Knowledge and Light. 

It may or may not have been St Paul who stood 
by the Abbe with words of encouragement that night ; 
but I, for one, find no difficulty in thinking it con- 
ceivable that the great Apostle should take a keen 
interest in the evolution of the planet upon which 
he once lived. 

The charming young lady delivered up her script 
also. It was interesting and well written, but the 
only paragraph which remains in my memory was 
an excellent analysis of the initial difference between 
Christianity and Theosophy. 

The Abbe kindly copied it out for me next day, 
but I must quote from memory. 

" Christianity is a stretching down of the Divinity- 
to Man. 

" Theosophy is the attempt of Man, by his own 
efforts, to reach the Divine." 



LADY CAITHNESS & AVENUE WAGRAM i55 

This seems to me both terse and true. 

We had sat from nine p.m. till one a.m., and I think 
we were all relieved when an adjournment foT 
supper was suggested by Lady Caithness. 

Her son, the Due de Pomar, joined us for this part 
of the evening, and was introduced to me. My 
enjoyment of the excellent fare, after so many hours 
of exhaustion, was only tempered by an unfortunate 
and violent quarrel between the mother and daughter 
mediums, on the score of the age of the latter ! The 
mother declared her daughter was forty-five ; the 
daughter said : " Not a day over thirty-five," and 
intimated that she surely might be supposed to 
know her own age ! The mother, however, mur- 
mured provokingly : " Moi, je sais mieux que f a " ; 
and so the wrangle went on, until I made a diversion 
by taking leave of my hostess and promising to be 
present at the lecture the " following afternoon," 
which, by the way, had become " this afternoon " 
by the time I left the Hotel Wagram. 

When I entered the house once more, it was to 
be shown into the large lecture-room previously 
described, which was already three parts full, and 
very shortly entirely so. 

Lady Caithness had kindly reserved a front seat 
for me, so I could see and hear without difficulty. 
On the raised platform stood my friend the Abbe 
looking very grave and rather nervous. A cardinal, 
two bishops, and some half-dozen priests were 
seated close to him, and very shortly the lecture, 
which was, I think, extempore, began. 

The Abbe was so manifestly in dead earnest and 
without any suspicion of fose, that one could not 



^^^ . SEEN AND UNSEEN 

^ .J be deeply impressed by the scene. It needed 
^ the help of a sincere purpose and a brave heart, 
io stand up amongst those of his own cloth, and, in 
face of a partially indifferent and partially unfriendly 
audience, to declare boldly " the faith that was in 
him " — a faith that burned all the more brightly 
and warmly from the fact that it was being purged 
of the superstitions which must always become the 
accretions of every form of religion ; the clinging 
refuse of weed and shell, which from time to time 
must be scraped off the bottom of the grand old ship 
if it is to convey us safely from port to harbour. 

The Cardinal sat twirling his big seal ring, with a 
look of cynical amusement on his face, or so it 
seemed to me. 

As the Abbe proceeded to mention the advances 
made in science and the necessity for a restatement 
of old truths, which should bring them into line with 
other truths of the nineteenth century, proving the 
essential unity of all truth, and breaking down the 
fallacy that the vital part of religion and the vital 
part of science have anything to fear from one 
another, the Cardinal's face was a study to me. 

" Yes, of course, we know all that, you and I, 
but what is the use of making this fuss about it ? 
We belong to a system, and this system has worked 
very well for centuries past, and will work very well 
for centuries to come if fools don't attempt to upset 
the coach by restatements and readjustments, as 
they are called. The people don't want restate- 
ments ; they want a dead certainty, and that is 
just what we give them." 

All this I seemed to read in his clever, cynical 



LADY CAITHNESS & AVENUE WAGRAM 157 

countenance, in direct opposition to the thrilling 
sentences of the Abbe Petit as he leant forward 
and said, with uplifted finger and prophetic in- 
tensity : 

" La lumitre est venue, mes frtres — et si vous ne la 
suivez pas — vous serez laisses seuls dans vos eglises.'' 

It is impossible to exaggerate the affectionate 
solemnity of this appeal to his brother priests. 
The tragic note was relieved later by an amused 
smile which rippled round the audience. This 
puzzled me until a kind French lady sitting next to 
me explained that the audience were amused by 
the " trh chers frhres " (dearly beloved brethren), 
with which the Abbe addressed them in this rather 
unorthodox lecture. It was evidently looked upon 
as a curious bit of " professional survival." 

On the following day (Thursday) I was invited 
to lunch with Lady Caithness at two p.m., and being 
a punctual person, I arrived at that hour. The 
powdered footman announced that his mistress had 
not yet emerged from her bedroom, and showed me 
up into the dining-room adjoining, where I awaited 
her. In a few minutes I was joined here by the 
Abbe, who politely expressed his sorrow that he had 
not known of my arrival earlier. 

As we sat chatting together, he told me a curious 
experience of his of the previous night, which will 
certainly " cause the enemy " to smile, if not " to 
blaspheme." 

He said (of course, in French) : " I was sitting last 
night in my room, which looks over the back of the 
house, and where I can hear no sounds from the 
Avenue, and I was talking to ' La Reine.' Sud- 



158 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

denly ' Elle TvCa frafpe sur Fepaule,^ and then said 
she must leave me at once, in order to meet the 
Duchesse, who had just returned home. At that 
moment twelve o'clock struck from a neighbouring 
church, and I looked at my watch, and found it was 
indeed midnight. When Madame la Duchesse comes 
in, I am most anxious to find out whether she and 
the Due were returning home at that hour. You 
will be my witness, madame, that I have told you 
of this occurrence before seeing the Duchesse." 

I assured him that I would gladly testify to this ; 
and in a few moments the Due de Pomar arrived, 
and almost immediately after him, Lady Caithness 
emerged from her bedroom on the other side of the 
dining-room. 

We sat down to luncheon, and I was much amused 
by the form of the Abbe's question later in the 
meal. 

" Madame la Duchesse ! puis je vous demander 
sans indiscretion, a quelle heme vous etes revenue hier 
au soir ? " 

Lady Caithness looked a little surprised, but 
answered readily enough : " Well, it must have 
been past midnight ; I did not notice very specially." 

" Not past midnight, mother," corrected the Due 
de Pomar ; " I heard a clock strike twelve just as we 
were driving through the Porte Coch^re." 

'' Bien, Madame, qu^ est-ce-que je vous ai dit ? ^^ 
demanded the Abbe, turning to me in triumph. 
He then repeated his story, and I was able to certify 
that he had already mentioned it to me on my 
arrival. 

The following day I took my leave of Lady 



LADY CAITHNESS & AVENUE WAGRAM 159 

Caithness, with a happy remembrance of her and her 
great kindness and hospitahty to me during this 
pleasant week. She made me promise to let her 
know whenever I might happen to be passing 
through Paris. I wrote to her the next year, when 
about to make a short stay in Paris, on returning 
from Algeria, and received an answer from the 
Riviera. She had been wintering there, and had 
been packed and ready for the return to Paris, when 
an obstinate chill had upset all plans. She begged 
me to go to the Avenue Wagram when I arrived 
and find out the latest news of her, as the doctors 
might give leave for the journey at any moment. 

Ten days later I did go to her house and interview 
the lady secretary (not the one I had seen), who was 
very giiidging in her answers, and gave me the im- 
pression that she was accustomed to deal with 
persons who had some " axe to grind " by claiming 
acquaintance with the Countess. 

I did not happen to have the letter in my pocket 
which authorised my visit, and should probably not 
have produced it in any case. So I turned away 
rather shortly, leaving my card, saying : "I must 
trouble you to forward this at once to Lady Caith- 
ness." 

The moment the secretary saw my name, her 
manner entirely changed, and became as servile as 
it had been " cavalier." 

" Miss Bates, I see ? Oh, certainly, I shall com- 
municate at once with her ladyship. I had no idea 
it was Miss Bates. Pray excuse me, so many come 
and ask for the Duchesse, and we have to be so very 
particular. But, of course, you must be the lady the 



i6o SEEN AND UNSEEN 

Duchesse is so very fond of. She has mentioned you 
often, and warned us to receive you with every 
courtesy." 

And that is my last recollection of the kindly 
woman, who died a few months later. No, not 
absolutely my last recollection : visiting Scotland 
in 1896, I made a point of going to Holyrood Chapel 
for the express purpose of finding her grave. 

The plain stone slab and simple inscription seemed 
at first a curious contrast to the gorgeous magni- 
ficence of her home and dress and surroundings. 
Yet I am inclined to think that they represented a 
side of her character which was quite as real as the 
other. 

In like manner, no one who knew of her only as a 
" wild visionary " could have realised the shrewd, 
practical woman of business and of common-sense 
who shared the personality of Countess of Caithness 
and Duchesse de Pomar. 

I remember that Mr Frederic Myers made the same 
remark to me after a visit he paid to her, just after 
my return to England, for the purpose of arranging 
matters with regard to her generous bequest to the 
Society for Psychical Research. 



CHAPTER VIII 

FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON 

From Paris to England is not a long cry, and my 
next reminiscence is connected with the University 
of Oxford. 

I was spending a few days there with a friend in 
the spring of 1896, and went with her one afternoon 
to an Oxford tea-party, with its usual sprinkling of 
women, married and unmarried ; a few dons cap- 
tured as a question of friendship, and more than a 
few undergraduates. 

Amongst the latter I chanced to hear the name of 
a very well-known bishop, whom I had first met and 
known rather intimately when I was a young girl, 
and he a young married curate. I had also known 
his wife (a few years my senior) very intimately in 
those far-off days, so my curiosity was aroused to 
know if the young man in this Oxford drawing- 
room should chance to be a son of this bishop, 
whom we will call the Bishop of Granchester. I 
found that my surmise was correct ; the young 
man was introduced to me, and we were soon deep 
in an interesting conversation about his parents, 
especially his mother, who had died when he was 
barely three years old. He knew little or nothing 
about her. His father had married again, and his 
paternal grandmother (still alive in 1896) had never 
T. 161 



i62 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

cared for his mother — from feehngs of jealousy 
probably— so there was no one to speak to the boy 
about her, and he was naturally delighted to hear all 
my girlish recollections of her. 

" Do come and have tea with me to-morrow after- 
noon, or any day that suits you," he said eagerly. 
" I have one or two old photographs taken of my 
mother when she was young, and I should like so 
much to know which of them you consider the best." 

Of course, I agreed to go, Mr Blake-Mason 
promising to ask a " chum " to entertain my hostess 
whilst he and I discussed the photographs and the 
old days before he was born. 

Returning home from his rooms that February 
evening, I was conscious once more of an unaccount- 
able depression, and also a certain amount of nervous 
irritability, which other sensitives will understand, 
and which often precedes some psychic happening. 
Just after we had finished dinner, it struck me sud- 
denly, and for the ftrst time, that my discomfort might 
be connected with my afternoon visit. This young 
man's mother might be wishing to impress me in 
some way ! I found that this was the fact, but felt 
unequal to going further into the matter that night. 

I promised to listen to anything she might wish 
to say next morning, and having given this promise, 
all unpleasant and disturbing influences disappeared, 
and I had a good night's rest. Next morning, after 
breakfast, my hostess said very practically : 

" Now do get this matter off your mind at once, 
or you will be worried about it all day. I am going to 
order dinner, and shall then be in the drawing-room, 
so you can have this room entirely to yourself." 



FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON 163 

I sat down, and a very beautiful message was given 
to me by the friend of my girlhood. 

She was evidently very much perturbed and very 
anxious about something connected with her young- 
est son, whom I had met for the first time two days 
previously, and about whose affairs, I need scarcely 
say, I was in a state of profound ignorance. The 
little mother was anxious not to '* give him away,'* 
nor betray confidences, and so her words were very 
guarded. There was evidently nothing in the least 
dishonourable or in any way unworthy of her son in 
question. I gathered, rather, that he might be con- 
templating some step which she, from her wider 
outlook, considered undesirable and inexpedient ; 
possibly even disastrous in the future. 

It was no business of mine, and I make it a point of 
honour not to " try to guess " more than I am told, 
and to forget what I am told as soon as possible, 
where the affairs of other people are involved. 

This is, fortunately, easy for me as a rule, but in 
this case one sentence remains even now ringing in 
my ears; and if the son ever comes across this record 
I hope he wiU forgive my reproducing his mother's 
last beautiful words to me : 

" Tell my darling boy that life is so solemn and 
true love so sacred a thing. Tell him to be very, 
very sure, lest he lose the substance in pursuing the 
shadow."*^ 

The first sentence is given verbatim. In the 
second my memory may be producing the sense 
without the exact wording, but I have no doubt at 
all that my words practically convey what the 
mother wished me to " tell her boy." 



i64 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

This message gave me a hard problem to solve : 
" What should I do with it ? " 

On the one hand, my having agreed to take the 
message, tacitly bound me to let him have it. 

On the other hand, there were various questions 
to consider. In the first place, Mr Blake-Mason 
might probably, and very naturally, resent my 
writing to him on the subject, especially as I had no 
reason to suppose he had any knowledge of psychic 
matters. 

Secondly, he might suppose (quite untruly) that 
I had heard some private affairs of his discussed, 
and had taken upon myself to convey a personal 
warning, under cover of his dead mother's wishes. 

This was perhaps exaggerating a possibility, 
which, nevertheless, could not be ignored. 

Thirdly, he might consider me a harmless lunatic, 
conveying a message which had no slightest founda- 
tion in truth. 

Fourthly, it might, on the other hand, give him 
the impression that his mother must have some ac- 
cess to his most private affairs ; in which case he 
might become intensely interested in psychic matters, 
to the exclusion of more mundane affairs — always a 
danger with young people — not to mention other 
possibilities of psychic disaster for inexperienced 
investigators. 

I went over all these chances con, to put against 
the one pro of his mother's loving anxiety, and my 
sense of responsibility to her. 

Finally, I decided that there was no choice left 
for me but to send the message, and trust the con- 
sequences to a Higher Wisdom. 



FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON 165 

I did this, adding a few words of explanation, and 
also of warning, in case he should recognise my ab- 
solute bond fides and his mother's personality, and 
become too much absorbed by these psychic possi- 
bilities. Unfortunately, I added, in his own interests, 
that it was not necessary to acknowledge the letter. 

" It would doubtless reach him, and I had nothing 
more to do with the matter." 

I left Oxford next day, and have never seen the 
young man since ; nor have I ever heard from him. 
I concluded that he was annoyed, or that the message 
was quite wide of the mark. I never doubted his 
mother's presence with me, but I might have failed 
to reproduce her words to her son with sufficient 
accuracy for recognition. 

Anyway, I put the matter out of my head as one 
of those trying episodes to which all sensitives are 
exposed at times, when they think more of conscience 
than personal convenience. 

Three or four j^ears passed before the corrobora- 
tion of that message came to me, in a rather curious 
manner. 

A cousin of mine, having been badly wounded in 
the West African War, was sent to a London hospital 
to have the bullet, which had puzzled all the local 
surgeons, located and extracted. 

He was at the hospital for several weeks during 
the London season of 1899, I think. During these 
weeks I, in common with many other friends and 
relations, was in the habit of paying him occasional 
visits. I had gone to say good-bye to him on 
leaving town, when " by chance " (as we call it) 
he mentioned, for the first time, the name of his 



i66 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

ward sister, adding how charming and kind and 
capable she had proved. " By the way, she is a 
daughter of the Bishop of Granchester," he added. 
" You know everybody. Cousin Emmie ! perhaps 
you know A^f," he said, smihng. 

" No ; I don't know her, Bertie ! but I knew her 
mother and father very well many years ago." 

Nothing would satisfy him but that I should ask 
to see her when I left the hospital, and as he seemed 
really anxious on the point I promised to do so, 
though inwardly averse from disturbing a busy 
woman. 

I asked the hall porter for her, but said I had no 
special business, and would not ask to see her unless 
she happened to be quite free. In a few moments he 
returned, and showed me into a pretty sitting-room 
on the ground floor, saying that the sister would be 
with me shortly. The door opened again to admit a 
bright, pleasant-looking young woman of seven or 
eight and twenty, who gave me a most cordial 
greeting when she heard my name, sa5dng : " Oh 
yes, Frank told me all about meeting you at Oxford." 

I did not feel very keen about talking of " Frank " 
just then ; but we sat down , and had a long half hour's 
chat on much the same lines as my conversation 
with her brother three years before. 

I had said good-bye, and she had accompanied me 
across the hall to the fine stone steps leading from 
the hospital — she had, in fact, turned towards her 
own apartments — when I felt I must ask her one more 
question, so I also turned, and hurried back to her. 
1^ " Did your brother Frank ever tell you of a letter 
he received from me in Oxford ? " I asked. 



FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON 167 

" Oh yes," she answered, without a touch of em- 
barrassment. 

Then I continued : "I never heard from him 
about it. I told him he need not write at the time, 
but I have been afraid he was hurt or annoyed, 
and thought it an impertinence on my part 
perhaps." 

" Did Frank never write ? " she asked, with 
genuine astonishment. " I know he intended to do 
so. Certainly he was not annoyed in any way. 
Far from it. He was intensely interested, and / 
have the best of reasons for knowing that that message 
from our mother made a very great difference in his 
lifer 

I thanked her for these words, without asking 
anything further. As I have said, it was no affair 
of mine, from first to last ; but the verification, 
after such a lapse of time, was doubly satisfactory 
to me. 

Again I ask : How about the " Ciii Bono " argu- 
ment ? 

Another shake of the kaleidoscope, and I find 
myself at Wimbledon, staying with a friend — now, 
alas ! passed away — who had then a pretty house 
not far from the Common, and with whom I often 
spent a few days when in London. 

On this occasion she had asked some friends to 
meet me at tea, amongst them Mrs Alfred Wedg- 
wood, to whom I had introduced her some years 
previously, and my friends " V. C. Desertis " and 
his wife. 

A Miss Farquhar, whom I knew very slightly, was 



i68 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

sharing a sofa with me, she sitting at one end and I 
at the other, leaving a vacant space between us. 
Mrs Wedgwood was talking to Mr Desertis at the 
moment, but suddenly looked across the room at our 
sofa, and began describing very graphically an old 
man of benevolent aspect sitting between Miss 
Farquhar and myself, leaning on a stick, and wearing 
a soft felt hat. 

" He has long hair, almost down to his coat collar, 
and he looks such a dear, kind old man ! " Mrs 
Wedgwood said ; then turning round, she added : 
" Surely some of you must recognise him ! he 
is so very clear and distinct in his whole per- 
sonality." 

Mrs Desertis whispered something to her husband, 
who asked at once if the old gentleman's hair was 
very white. 

" Yes ; quite white," said Mrs Wedgwood hope- 
fully. 

" And curly and long ? " 

" Yes ; curly and quite long, reaching to his collar," 
continued Mrs Wedgwood, still more confidently. 

But our hopes were dashed when Mr Desertis 
turned round drily to his wife : " Then it cannot 
possibly be my father, as you suggested. His hair 
was white, but quite short.'''' 

It was a cruel blow ! But Mrs Wedgwood still 
affirmed that she had never seen anyone more 
distinctly, whether we recognised him or not. 

I may here mention that I had been sleeping very 
badly in this house for some nights past, and re- 
gretted this the more, because I was shortly going to 
stay with a friend at Windsor for my first " Fourth 



FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON 169 

of June," and wished to be specially bright and well 
for the coming festivities. 

These bad nights were later proved to have some 
connection with the benevolent old gentleman just 
described ! 

Now I will continue the sequence of events. 

Mrs Wedgwood's clairvoyant description had been 
forgotten by us all, as I supposed, long before the 
afternoon came to an end. It had passed unre- 
cognised, and other interesting matters arose in 
conversation. 

The following day Miss Farquhar wrote a line to 
my hostess, asking if she might come to tea towards 
the end of the week, as she had something very 
interesting to tell us. She came, of course, and thus 
unfolded her budget : 

" None of you seemed very much impressed about 
that old gentleman Mrs Wedgwood described here 
the other day, but her words were so graphic that 
I felt sure she was really seeing him at the moment, 
so I determined to try and find out something about 
him. 

" I went to an old lady I know, one of the oldest 
inhabitants, and asked her if she knew anything of 
your predecessors in this house. She told me an 
elderly couple had lived here, a husband and wife, 
that the husband had died, and that although the 
wife lived away from Wimbledon now, she could not 
bear to part with the house which her husband had 
been so fond of ; so let it. In fact, my old friend 
seemed to think she must be your present landlady." 

This was said to my hostess, and proved to be 
quite true. The house had been let through an 



170 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

agent, and as the present owner lived in a distant 
county, nothing was known of her personally by 
my friend. 

Then Miss Farquhar continued : " Hearing that 
the old man was so devoted to the house rather 
suggested a reason for Mrs Wedgwood seeing him 
here, so I asked my old lady if she had known this 
gentleman, and if so, would she describe him. She 
did this, almost word for word as Mrs Wedgwood had 
seen him. Also, she added, that he was a good deal 
of an invalid, often sat indoors, with a hat on for fear 
of draughts, and carried a stick, upon which he con- 
stantly leant for support." 

This was very satisfactory, and we applauded 
Miss Farquhar's detective instincts, and promised 
to let Mrs Wedgwood know about the matter. 

The latter took it all very quietly, only remarking 
that she felt sure someone ought to be able to find 
out about the old man. 

A sudden thought struck me that my disturbed 
nights and uncomfortable feelings, in a very cheer- 
ful and pretty bedroom, might possibly be connected 
with the same old man. Without saying a word 
about this, I asked Mrs Wedgwood to come up into 
my room before she returned to London, and then 
I told her that I could not sleep, and had not had a 
peaceful night since I arrived. Could she find out 
what was the cause ? 

Mrs Wedgwood looked round for a moment, and 
then said in the most casual way : " Not the 
smallest doubt of the cause. It is that old man, of 
course. He is earth-bound, I expect, and haunting 
the house. You had better take a message from 



FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON 171 

him if you want to get rid of him. I would help 
you if I could, but I shall be late for my train if I 
don't start at once." 

Next morning I took the poor old gentleman's 
message, which began with an apology and regrets 
for disturbing me, but went on pathetically : 

'' You must forgive me, I was so very anxious to 
send a message to my wife, and I saw that you were 
a sensitive and could take it from me — I did not 
realise that it might cause you so much discomfort. 
That lady called me earth-bound, but if I am, it is 
only through my deep love for my dear wife, and I 
am permitted to watch over her. I was drawn 
here by my old affection for this house, and also by 
your presence here, knowing you could help me." 

He then gave the message, of which I can only 
remember that it was most touching in its expressions 
of deep affection and watchful care for his widow. 

As we did not know this lady's present address, 
and could not procure it without raising incon- 
venient questions, my hostess and I settled that she 
should lock up the message, in the hope that some 
day we might be able to forward it. 

A year later I had a most unpleasant experience 
of being made to feel seriously ill when I came down 
for a night from town, and as another clairvoyant 
assured me that this resulted from the message 
remaining undelivered and the poor old man's 
frantic endeavours to reach his wife's conscious- 
ness, I told my Wimbledon friend that something 
must be done. Either she must procure the lady's 
address " coute que coute,'' or I could not come down 
again to Wimbledon until this step had been taken. 



172 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

Under pressure of this determination of mine 
the address was procured, and this led to a rather 
unpleasant experience. 

I wrote a very courteous letter to the lady, en- 
closing the message, and explaining that I was quite 
debarred from visiting my Wimbledon friend until 
it was delivered, that I hoped, therefore, she would 
excuse my sending it, after more than a year's 
consideration of the question. I further intimated 
that although she might consider me a lunatic 
for my pains, I trusted there could be nothing to 
vex or hurt her in so touching an evidence of her 
husband's constant care and love, however little 
faith she might be disposed to place in the source 
from which the message was supposed to emanate. 

The answer came as a shower bath on my un- 
fortunate head. 

The old lady (?) was furious. She had never 
heard of such wicked nonsense ! " Her dear hus- 
band was quite the gentleman, both in clothes and 
ap'pearance, and he was not old — not a day over 
sixty-eight — when he died,"""* etc. etc. 

It would have been amusing if it had not been 
rather pitiful to think of the poor " young " man of 
sixty-eight trying so hard to reach such a termagant ! 

Later, I heard that the military man, through 
whom the old lady's address had been given to my 
Wimbledon hostess, had asked the husband of the 
latter if I were a lunatic, by any chance ! 

And this is how some of us welcome our friends 
from the other side of the veil ! The marvel to me 
is that Love can still be stronger than Death, in 
face of such ingratitude and stupidity ! 



FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON 173 

I have already mentioned my extreme sensitive- 
ness to the atmosphere (psychic) of rooms, especi- 
ally rooms where one sleeps. I find another instance 
of this in my notes. 

I was paying a first visit to a friend in the south 
of England, and a very bright, cheerful room had 
been allotted to me there. 

From the first night I felt a strong influence 
of a man in the room. Kindly note that I do not 
say the influence of a strong man ; on the contrary, 
the character appeared to me that of an essentially 
weak man — weak rather than wicked — sensual as 
well as sensuous — self-indulgent, and greatly want- 
ing in grit and will power. 

My hostess had two sons, one whom I knew, 
and the other, living abroad, whom I had never 
met. The influence I felt was certainly not that 
of the son I knew, who was both manly and strong- 
willed, a fine soldier, and " hard as nails," as men 
would say. 

I feared it might be the other son, however, 
and took an early opportunity of asking to see a 
photograph of the latter. My mind was quite set 
at rest. It was certainly not this man's influence 
that I had felt so strongly in my room. 

Asking my hostess, who had chiefly occupied the 
room, she said at once : " Both my sons have 
slept there at different times," adding, " I am 
sure you have some of your queer ideas about the 
room — what is the matter with it ? " 

I told her ; " Now that I am quite convinced 
that neither of your sons is implicated, I will 
describe to you the character of a man whom I 



174 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

feel sure must have slept in that room and has 
left a strong psychic influence behind him." 

I then mentioned the characteristics already 
given, and one or two more which have escaped 
my memory. 

My sceptical friend looked a little surprised. She 
said nothing at the moment, but crossed the room 
to a cabinet, whence she took a photograph of a 
man which I had never seen, and placed it in my 
hands. 

" I am bound to confess," she added, " that 
you have exactly described the character of my 
brother-in-law, who certainly has occupied the room 
more than once." 

The sequel to this little incident is rather signi- 
ficant. 

A year or two later, this lady and I, having 
both succumbed to influenza and bronchitis, were 
sent off to the same place abroad to recuperate. 

Her attack had ended sooner than mine, so that 
I joined her there, and one of the first pieces of news 
she gave me was of the death of this brother-in-law, 
adding : " Poor fellow ! He died from a very 
painful disease, and suffered terribly. He had 
grave faults, but, as you said, they came from weak- 
ness rather than wickedness. At anyrate, he was 
humble-minded, for he wrote a touching letter to 
me when I lost a very dear relation lately, wondering 
why such a valuable life should have been taken 
and such a ' useless log ' as himself be left alive." 

This poor man had only just passed over when 
I joined my friend, and I felt that he was in a very 
bewildered and sad state of mind. I could realise 



FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON 175 

his presence so clearly, partly, no doubt, from 
having sensed his character so strongty, that the 
obvious thing seemed to be to try and help him on 
his new plane of life. 

To the superficial mind it appears very absurd, 
and equally irreverent, to suppose that a faulty 
creature on this side the veil can help a faulty 
creature on the other side. Personally, I have never 
had any difficulty in realising the power of prayer 
for those who have passed beyond our mortal sight. 

Surely we are one large family, whether here or 
there ? The best way to make children love each 
other is to persuade them to help each other. Is it 
strange that the same rule should apply to the 
universe that applies to the tiny portion of it that 
we know ? 

Anyway, I am quite sure in this case that my 
prayers did help and comfort this poor man in his 
dark experience. 

In a few weeks the position seemed to be alto- 
gether lightened. He thanked me for my sympathy 
and companionship, and I have never heard of him 
since. 

The caviller will say at once : " Could not someone 
else have done the work equally well — either a near 
relation in the other sphere or a ministering angel ? " 

The answer is : " Certainly they could have done 
it equally well, probably far better." 

But the point is that it happened to be the bit of 
work put into my hands, and at least I did my best. 
What more can any of us say ? 

Again I ask : How about the " Cui Bono " argu- 
ment ? 



CHAPTER IX 

HAUNTINGS BY THE LIVING AND THE DEAD 
1896 

In this same year (1896) I remember another curi- 
ous incident. 

I was staying in London during the season, and 
some girl friends were very anxious that I should 
meet a lady whom they knew intimately and wished 
me to know also. As so often happens under these 
circumstances, we were not in the least degree 
interested in each other ; but that has nothing to 
do with my story. 

The girls had asked various other friends, but 
this special lady was the raison d^etre of the tea- 
party, and they begged me to come in good time, 
because Mrs Halifax had several other engage- 
ments, and could not pay them a long visit. 

So I dressed hurriedly in order to keep the ap- 
pointment, and went to the house feeling rather 
bored by the whole arrangement, little dreaming 
that it would be the occasion of such an interesting 
personal experience. The lady turned out to be 
exceedingly prosperous and extremely uninter- 
esting, from my point of view. Probably she 
would have given her ideas of me in much the same 
way ! I realised that she had brought a son and a 
daughter with her, but did not know that another 

176 



HAUNTINGS BY LIVING AND DEAD 17 

young man (whose face I have never seen) was also 
a son of hers. I talked to the mother for the con- 
ventional quarter of an hour, and then turned with 
relief to the other son whom she had mentioned, and 
with whom I found several old friends in common. 

Meanwhile the room was filling up with guests ; 
amongst these late comers I noticed the entrance 
of a man whose face did not impress me at all 
favourably. He looked dissipated and conceited. 
I did not speak to this man, but my strong impres- 
sion about him is a factor in the story. 

When the lady, par excellence, of the entertain- 
ment rose to leave the room, followed by her son 
and daughter, I noticed that a second young man 
was also in her train ; but I had not seen him 
previously, for the very good reason that he had 
been sitting behind my back all the afternoon. 

I did not see his face even now. My attention 
had been diverted from the Halifax party as they 
rose to take leave, and I only noticed the hack of 
the second young man as they left the room, and 
was told later that this was another son of Mrs 
Halifax, no other conunent upon him being made. 

In those days I was able to do more work on the 
psychic plane than at present, and often tried to 
help sad or wandering spirits by praying for them 
when made conscious of their presence near me. 

When I woke in the night — after this tea-party — 
therefore, and felt a presence near me, it did not at 
first alarm me in any way. 

When fully aw^ake, however, I quickly realised 
that this was no poor, sad, bewildered spirit, but 
a very malignant and revengeful one. I did not 

M 



178 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

recognise the sex at the moment. In fact, my con- 
sciousness was entirely engrossed by realising that 
this was a question of my prayers being needed by 
no spirit more urgently than by my own. 

Something very malignant was in the room — 
something or someone far too actively and insis- 
tently wrathful and malignant to listen to any prayers 
or entreaties. 

This conviction grew so strong upon me that I 
lighted my candle, and getting out of bed, prayed 
for protection against the evil thing that was 
present in my room. 

I think I must have remained at least ten minutes 
on my knees, and I can remember distinctly the 
feeling of alarm and hopelessness that came over me 
when I realised how strong were the Powers of Dark- 
ness and how Httle my prayers seemed to avail me. 

Shortly, however, faith returned, and with it 
the confidence of victory. I returned to my bed 
quite calm and strong, and fell asleep knowing that 
the malignant presence was no longer there to 
worry and torment me. 

I have always found it as easy to communicate 
with incarnate spirits at a distance as with dis- 
carnate ones, so on awaking in the morning, and 
remembering my disagreeable experience, I asked 
a friend, " still in the body," what was the mean- 
ing of it. 

I had made up my mind that if it were in any 
way connected with the visitors of the previous 
afternoon, it must be with the dissipated-looking 
young man, for whom I had conceived an instinc- 
tive aversion. 



HAUNTINGS BY LIVING AND DEAD 179 

To my infinite surprise his name was not given, 
but that of the younger HaUfax son. " It was 
Henry Hahfax. It is a spirit which was haunting 
him and came to you afterw^ards." 

Now, as I had not even seen this young man, as 
already explained, I could not bear to think of any 
false and fanciful accusation being made against 
him ; so remonstrated with my friend. 

" Do be careful in giving me the name. Are you 
quite sure you mean Henry Halifax ? Are you not 
thinking of Mr Loseby ? " (Mentioning the name 
that had been given me of the other gentleman.) 

" No ; I mean Henry Halifax." 

" But I did not even see him," I urged. 

" No ; but you were sitting with your back to him 
all afternoon. DonH you know the back is more 
psychically sensitive than any other part of the body ? " 

Nothing was said about the malignant spirit 
beyond the fact that it was someone " haunting " 
Henry Halifax. 

The matter, once explained, I put it out of my 
head, having no special curiosity as to the reason of 
the haunting, and supposing it might have been 
some male acquaintance of his. 

That morning I went down to my Wimbledon 
friend for a night. I arrived in time for luncheon 
on Saturday morning, and after a pleasant walk on 
the Common in the afternoon my friend suggested 
our coming home by a certain florist's shop, as she 
wished to buy some plants for her drawing-room. 

I had already met this florist's wife, a very 
" spooky " person, who had been introduced by us 
to Mr Myers and the Society for Psychical Research. 



i8o SEEN AND UNSEEN 

She was a handsome, fresh-coloured, practical 
woman, with nothing of the weird and pallid 
" ghost seer " about her comely face. But she 
had had some wonderful experiences, and her 
children also ; and these had been already imparted 
to Mr Frederic Myers. 

When the business part of our interview was con- 
cluded Mrs Levret turned to me, and said : " Well, 
ma'am, I am glad to see you again in these parts. 
Have you had any curious experiences since I saw 
you last ? " 

Now Mrs Levret had so many curious experiences 
of her own, as to which she was wont to be very 
voluble, that I had never before known her express 
curiosity about those of anybody else. 

This just flashed through my mind as I answered 
her : 

" No ; nothing particular, Mrs Levret. By-the- 
by, I had a rather disagreeable experience last 
night, but it has been explained." And in a few 
words I mentioned what has been already described 
at length. 

From my words she must have gathered that I 
supposed the haunting spirit to be that of a man, 
and that I did not attach much importance to it 
any way. 

As we left the shop my charming hostess, who 
was equally beloved by those in her own class and 
those out of it, turned round, and said pleasantly : 
" We must hurry home now, Mrs Levret, but do 
come up to-morrow and see Miss Bates. She does 
not leave me till the evening, and I know you will 
enjoy having a talk with her." 



HAUNTINGS BY LIVING AND DEAD i8i 

Mrs Levret promised to come, and appeared next 
morning, having first ascertained that the sceptical 
husband of my hostess would not be upon the 
premises. " He does laugh at me so, ma'am," 
she said apologetically. So she was brought straight 
up to my bedroom next day, and we had an inter- 
esting talk over her own strange adventures. 

Suddenly she looked up, and said : " A propos 
des bottes.'' 

" How about that young man, ma'am ? What 
are you going to do about him ? " 

" What young man ? " I said, honestly puzzled. 
*' And what can I do about any young man ? " 

The Halifax incident had so completely faded 
from my mind that I could not for the moment 
imagine what she meant. 

" The young man you told me about yesterday 
afternoon, ma'am," Mrs Levret answered stoutly. 

" But I can't do anything about him. What 
should I do ? " 

Then she took up her parable in these words : 

" Well, ma'am, I have been thinking a deal 
about that young man since yesterday. It seemed 
to take a sort of hold upon me. It seems given to 
me, ma'am, that it is a young woman who is haunting 
him — a young woman who is not in his own rank in 
life — someone whom he wronged^ 

I was amazed by these words, and still more by 
the keen interest Mrs Levret showed in the subject. 

" But what can / do in the matter, even if it be 
as you say ? " was my next question. 

" Well, ma'am, they give me to understand that 
the young man must be made to confess. He will 



i82 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

never have any peace until he does. It seems to 
me you might get him to confess." 

Now there could be no question of confession 
on the outer plane, as the young man was a perfect 
stranger to me, and there was small chance of our 
ever meeting again. 

But I was aware that Mrs Levret was not speaking 
of the outer plane, so I agreed to take pencil and 
paper, and see if I could bring the spirit of Henry 
Halifax to me, and having done so, whether I could 
induce him to tell me the truth. 

He came, but for a long time would say neither 
Yes nor No. " What business is it of yours ? " was 
the constant reply to my questions. And I am 
bound to say it appeared a very pertinent one, from 
the ordinary point of view. 

Clearly it was no business of mine ; but Mrs 
Levret was so much in earnest, and had impressed 
me so strongly with what " had been given to her^ 
that I felt I must persevere, in the young fellow's 
own interests. 

So I explained that I had no wish to pry into his 
private affairs from any mere unworthy curiosity, 
but that having myself felt the malignant presence 
that was said to be haunting him, and being told 
that only confession would remove it, I hoped he 
would consider the matter seriously before obstinately 
closing the door of opportunity now open to him. 
" Who could foretell when he might have another 
chance ? " 

A long pause succeeded these words. I felt that 
the angry, irritable mood was passing over, and when 
my hand was next influenced to write, the words 



HAUNTINGS BY LIVING AND DEAD 183 

that came were not the usual curt " None of your 
business,'' but an apology for his rude reception of 
my efforts to help him, and a full confession, which 
entirely bore out Mrs Levret's impressions. 

He told me that it was only too true that he had 
betrayed a young woman in a different rank of 
life from his own. She had died in child-birth the 
preceding midsuvimer, and had died cursing him for 
his perfidy. Ever since (it was now late in June) 
he had been haunted by her presence, seeing nothing, 
but always conscious of a malignant spirit tempting 
him to his own destruction. The mental agony 
was so great that he told me he did not think he 
could endure it much longer, and had almost decided 
to put an end to his life (little realising, poor fellow, 
that bad as this life might be, the next phase would 
be far worse for him). 

After trying to soothe and comfort him, without 
in any way minimising the weight of his sin or 
attempting to lessen his remorse for it, it struck 
me that it would be well to try and have a little 
talk with his poor young victim. So saying good- 
bye, and promising to remember him in future, I 
asked mentally for her spirit to come, and then 
tried to influence her in the direction of forgiveness. 
It was a hard struggle, and no wonder. 

The poor young woman had trusted him, had 
been deceived, and finally launched into another 
sphere without any preparation for it. What wonder 
that she haunted the man who had wronged her so 
terribly, through pure selfishness, and that any 
love she had ever borne him had long since turned 
to deadly hate ! 



i84 SEEN AND" UNSEEN 

It needed both time and patience to rouse even 
mere passive feelings towards him. I spoke of his 
deep remorse and misery. At first she only an- 
swered that she was very glad to hear it, because it 
showed she had succeeded in making her presence 
felt. 

By degrees, however, a more womanly view of the 
subject seemed to come to her. After all, he was 
the father of her child ; the poor little baby that 
had mercifully followed its mother into the Great 
Unseen. She had loved him once, by her own 
showing. I made the most of this point, and very 
slowly, very grudgingly, she gave me the promise 
I asked for — ix. that she would at least cease this 
revengeful haunting, even if she could not yet feel 
more kindly towards the one who had injured her 
so deeply. 

Having extracted this promise I felt that no more 
could be done for the time being, and Mrs Levret, 
who had been sitting in unwonted silence during 
both interviews, then took her leave. 

I have given this case and its treatment very 
much in extenso, not only because it may be helpful 
to others dealing with erring and revengeful spirits, 
but because on my return to London every im- 
portant point in this true narrative was amply cor- 
roborated. 

It took some time and a good deal of tact before 
the case was complete. 

First, I learned that Henry Halifax was by no 
means a persona grata in the house where I first 
met him, and that my young friends there had 
only been allowed to ask him under some protest, 



HAUNTINGS BY LIVING AND DEAD 185 

and because the rest of his family were to be pre- 
sent. 

Asked why this should be the case, their answers 
were naturally vague : they only knew he was not 
very welcome. 

Of course, I did not pursue the matter with these 
young people. They told me, however, that he was 
very much changed of late, and seemed so often 
moody, unhappy, and discontented. 

" I am sure we should be happy enough if we had 
such a luxurious home and all that money," said 
one of them naively. 

Now I happened to know rather intimately at 
that time another friend of the Halifax family ; 
a woman considerably older than the young girls 
mentioned, and as she had some little knowledge of 
psychic possibilities I determined to lay the whole 
story before her, trusting to her honour to keep it 
to herself, and not to allow any prejudice against 
Henry Halifax to arise in her mind should she know 
nothing of the circumstances. 

She had known the family from her childhood, 
and I knew, therefore, would not be influenced by 
the word of an outsider under these circumstances. 
But I discovered that the confession of Henry 
Halifax, the spirit, was no illusion on my part, but 
the absolute truth. 

Young, handsome, rich, with all the world before 
him (he was only twenty-four at the time), this lady 
had been greatly puzzled by his intense depression 
of the last few^ months, and told me that he was 
constantly speaking of suicide. It was supposed 
to be a purely physical condition by his parents and 



i86 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

others. She, however, knew an intimate man friend 
of his. By one of those not uncommon mistakes, 
whereby each one supposes the other to be in the 
confidence of a mutual acquaintance, she had 
discovered that the real trouble was mental rather 
than physical, and that the death of the young 
woman of lower social position, in child-birth, 
" last midsummer " was an actual fact ! 

Needless to say how great was her astonishment 
to find that the whole story had been made known 
to me through such a curious train of circumstances 
— first, my experience of the malignant spirit ; 
secondly, my happening to go to Wimbledon next 
day and mention the circumstances to the wife of 
the florist there ; thirdly, her strong and, as it 
proved, quite accurate impressions upon the subject ; 
and fourthly, my two interviews : — first, with the 
betrayer, and then with the betrayed on the psychic 
plane. 

Some few months later I was asked by the lady 
just mentioned if I should object to meeting Henry 
Halifax at dinner next evening. 

" Not at all," was my answer. In fact, I felt it 
might be part of some psychic plan that I should 
do so. Evidently this was not the case, for at the 
last moment a telegram came to his hostess to say he 
was unexpectedly prevented from returning to town. 

So we have never met at all ! But I trust the 
confession may have been as efficacious as Mrs 
Levret was told that it would be. Anyway, I can 
testify that the gentleman in question is now happily 
married, and, therefore, presumably no longer 
haunted by the revengeful spirit, who has long 



HAUNTINGS BY LIVING AND DEAD 187 

since, let us trust, found happiness and peace in a 
higher world than this. 

Speaking of haunting by the so-called dead 
reminds me of haunting by the so-called living. 

In this same year (1896) I was staying in Cam- 
bridge for the first time in my life. 

Oxford I have known since girlhood, but this 
was my first visit to the Sister University ; need- 
less to say, however, that I have met many men 
who have graduated there. Not knowing the 
town of Cambridge myself, I had never made it a 
subject of discussion, and ten years ago I was not 
even aware that such a street as Tnmipington 
Street existed, difficult as it may be for Cambridge 
people to credit this statement. 

In any case, most emphatically, I did not know 
that a very old friend of mine, who became later 
in life a judge, had ever lived in this street. 

Having been a sailor in youth, he had gone up to 
Cambridge comparatively late ; this was shortly 
before my acquaintance with him began. 

Not knowing Cambridge at all, the question of 
where he lived there had never entered into our 
conversations together. Probably I took it for 
granted that he was living in his college (Peterhouse). 
The strong feeling of friendship between us had 
become a warmer sentiment on his side, and this 
led later, and inevitably, to a thorough break in our 
pleasant relations with each other. 

Long years passed, during which I neither saw 
nor heard of my friend. 

I knew that he had married, and had had a some- 



i88 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

what successful career as a barrister in London, 
and that was all I knew about him. 

After staying for a week or two with friends in 
the neighbourhood of Cambridge in i8g6, I had 
taken rooms for a month in Cambridge, inviting 
one of these friends to stay with me as my guest. 

We came upon these special rooms in a curious 
way. Having worked through a list of those sug- 
gested to us by a friend, none of which quite suited, 
I heard, by the merest chance, that possibly I might 
find what I wanted in Trumpington Street, at the 
house of a very respectable Cambridge tradesman. 
We went there, but only to find that the rooms 
vacant could not be ready for me at the time 
specified, as some old customers were coming to 
them for three or four days. 

" But I want them for a month, ^^ I expostulated. 

The landlady was firm ; she could not disappoint 
these people after promising to take them in. 

In spite of my disappointment, I admired her so 
much for this strict sense of honour that I deter- 
mined to look at the rooms in case of requiring 
any at a future date. 

We went upstairs. The rooms were exactly 
what I required, and very clean and well furnished, 
so it ended by my agreeing to take them for a week 
later, although at a considerable inconvenience. 

It was in this casual way that I entered the 
house about the middle of May 1896. My friend 
was not able to join me until the morning after my 
arrival, so I spent the first evening alone, and 
retired to bed rather early. I slept well enough 
during the earlier part of the night, but awoke 



HAUNTINGS BY LIVING AND DEAD 189 

about two A.M., having had a tiresome, worrying 
dream about the very man I have mentioned, who 
had certainly not been in my thoughts for many 
months, or possibly years. 

Even when fully awake, his influence was still 
in the room with me, and falling asleep again, 
there he was once more in my dream, twitting me 
with my want of appreciation of him in the past, 
and suggesting what a much more successful career 
I might have had through marrying him. This 
sort of thing went on for the rest of the night. 
Either I woke up with a disagreeable start, still 
feeUng the man's influence in the room, or sank into 
a troubled sleep, to be once more at the mercy of 
his reproaches ! 

When morning came I was only too thankful 
to get up, and when my friend arrived on her bicycle 
about noon, and asked me how I had slept in the 
strange house, I was forced to confess that my night 
had been much troubled by dreams about an old 
friend, of whom she had never heard, by-the-by. 

" Oh, well, we all dream about old friends some- 
times," she said, " but I'm afraid in this case 
your dreams were not pleasant ; you look tired out ! 
Anyway, it is a mercy that it was not F 's ! " 

And so with a joke the matter dropped. 

But the following night the trouble was renewed. 
Even then I did not in any way connect it with the 
room in which I was sleeping, and I said nothing 
next day to my friend on the subject. 

But the third night matters had gone beyond a 
joke. The influence was stronger than ever, the 
gibes and reproaches more accentuated, and, in 



190 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

addition to these, there was on my side the exaspera- 
tion engendered by three sleepless nights. 

Instead of feeling depressed — as on the two 
previous occasions — the " worm turned " at last ! 

I spoke out loud in my vexation, as though the 
man himself were there listening to me. 

" Well," I said, " I have no unkindly feeling 
towards you of any kind. If you have nothing better 
to do than to come worrying me and keeping me 
awake in this way, it just shows how wise I was 
not to marry you ! You have nothing to do with 
my life now. And you can go." 

" Standing up " in this way to the ghost of the 
living, had a most excellent effect, upon my mind 
at any rate. I felt intensely relieved, and soon 
fell into a long and dreamless sleep. 

This last experience first suggested the idea that 
this old friend must have some special connection 
with that house. In the morning I confessed to my 
friend that my second night had been as disturbed 
as the first, and the last the worst of all, adding : 
" That man is simply haunting the place. I am 
determined to try and find out if he ever lodged 
here." 

This was by no means easy, as it turned out. His 
College career was already buried in the snows of 
some twenty-five years. Moreover, when I ques- 
tioned the young daughter of our landlady as to 
how long her parents had lived in the house, she 
said at once : " Just seventeen years, ma'am. 
Father and mother came here the year I was born." 

This did not help me much. I asked who had 
rented the house previously. Referring this ques- 



HAUNTINGS BY LIVING AND DEAD 191 

tion to her mother, she told me it had been taken 
from some people who had left Cambridge, and 
" Mother thought they were both dead now'' 

This was a second cul-de-sac for me ! 

But I was determined to go on with my investiga- 
tions, simply grounded upon the strong conviction 
that such repeated experiences must have some 
foundation in fact. 

The girl saw I looked disappointed. " Did you 
want to know about anyone who lived here long 
ago ? " she ventured timidly. 

" Yes ; I wanted to find out whether an old friend 
of mine ever lodged here ; he belonged to Peter- 
house," was my answer. 

" Ah, then, I am sure he would not have 
lodged here," said the girl confidently. " None 
of the Peterhouse gentlemen come here. It is 
always the Pembroke men who come to this house." 

It seemed fated that I should hear no more 
about my living ghost. 

A few^ days later, however, the luck turned. 

I was told quite casually that Mr Pound, the well- 
known Cambridge chemist, had occupied our house 
years before, and I determined to verify this some 
day. As Mr Pound combined the post office with 
his drugs, one often went into the shop, but hitherto 
I had only seen his assistants. 

Going in one day with my friend for some stamps, 
Mr Pound himself handed them to me. 

Here was my chance ! I must confess that I 
hesitated to ask such an apparently absurd question 
on such slender grounds. In any case, was it 
likely that he would remember the names of all 



192 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

the undergraduates in the University who might 
have lodged with him twenty or thirty years 
before ? I whispered to my friend : " Shall I 
ask him ? " but she did not hear, so even this 
small encouragement was denied me. I was actually 
turning to leave the shop, when resolution at length 
took the reins, and I found myself asking : 

" Is it true, Mr Pound, that you lived many years 
ago at No. — Trumpington Street ? " 

" Quite true," was the ready answer. " I went 
there in the year fifty-five." (I quote this from 
memory, but it was in the fifties certainly.) 

" I wanted to ask a question about a gentleman 
who may have lodged with you a good deal later 
than that — about seventy, I should think." And I 
mentioned the name of my friend. 

Mr Pound's brow cleared at once, and he looked 
up with a beaming smile. " Mr Forbes," he said— 
" why, of course, I remember him well. He lodged 
with me over eighteen months." Then turning to 
his assistant, he told him to go into the parlour and 
bring out the large photograph album. There 
was my friend, sure enough, with his big dog — the 
very photograph I had of him, given me in the 
early days of our acquaintance. 

Mr Pound was full of reminiscences. My friend 
had evidently been a prime favourite with him, 
and it was some minutes before I could squeeze 
in my crucial question. It seemed almost impos- 
sible to expect him to remember the exact rooms 
occupied by Mr Forbes, considering there were two 
or three " sets " of rooms in the house, in addition 
to several bedrooms which were let separately. 



HAUNTINGS BY LIVING AND DEAD 193 

But even here Mr Pound's memory proved invalu- 
able. " Wliich room he slept in ? Why, of course, 
I remember distinctly. He had the large front 
sitting-room and the bedroom at the back of it ; 
over our living-room in those days." 

So I was living in Mr Forbes' sitting-room, and 
sleeping in the bedroom, he had occupied for more 
than eighteen months. 

My Cambridgeshire friend was, fortunately, present 
as a witness that no word of mine had indicated 
this fact before Mr Pound corroborated my intuitive 
impression. She said afterwards, laughingly, that 
Mr Myers would certainly think I had got up a 
special ghost story for him the moment I set foot 
in Cambridge. 

However this may be, both he and Professor 
Sidgwick were greatly interested in it, for, as they 
explained, there were fifty accounts of haunting by the 
dead to one such example of haunting by the living. 

Of course, such a case presents innumerable 
difficulties ; still the salient fact remains, that after 
a lapse of nearly thirty years I traced the rooms 
occupied by an old friend, in a city I had never 
before entered, and that this knowledge did not 
come to me by chance, but as the result of a series 
of investigations, started by me solely on account of 
the experiences that came to me in a house and in 
a room of which I had absolutely no previous knowledge. 
Those interested in these subjects will naturally 
ask : ''Do you suppose that the spirit of Mr Forbes 
came to you at the moment of your remarks to him 
and his to you ? If so, was he conscious of any 
such experience ? " 



194 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

I can answer this last question decidedly, and in 
the negative ; for four years later, circumstances 
brought me once more within the orbit of Mr Forbes' 
life. He was then living in the north of England, 
and he and his wife and I have discussed the question 
more than once. 

We can only suppose that the impression of his 
presence did in some way cling to the surroundings ; 
that my sleeping there, even in complete ignorance 
of his tenancy, enabled me, as a " sensitive," to 
pick up this special influence from many others 
presumably present ; and that the memories of the 
past galvanised the impression into some sort of 
temporary astral existence. The entity to whom 
I seemed to be speaking was doubtless not the 
Judge Forbes of later life, but some distorted 
image of his earlier days of disappointed and often 
reproachful affection. 

When Mr Myers suggested that I should get Mr 
Pound to sign a paper mentioning that he had told 
me that Mr Forbes had occupied these special rooms 
twenty-seven years previously, the latter did so 
readily, only remarking that he had naturally 
concluded that I knew my friend had lodged with 
him. 

" Pound will ' smell a rat ' if I go," said Mr Myers. 

So I went myself, and thus the story was made 
evidentially complete. 



CHAPTER X 

FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 

My second visit to America was paid in the year of 
the Diamond Jubilee, 1897. 

After wintering in the West Indies, I went on to 
America in the spring, chiefly with the view of 
meeting Mrs Piper for the first time, and securing 
a few sittings with her if possible.* 

I was writing some articles for Borderland at the 
time, and Mr Stead was specially anxious for me 
to take this opportunity of " sampling " the famous 
American sensitive. 

This proved no easy task. My visit to Boston, 
unfortunately, occurred at the very time when an 
organised attempt was being made by the American 
branch of the Society for Psychical Research to 
get into some sort of evidential communication 
with the late Mr Stainton Moses through his " con- 
trols " Imperator, Rector, etc. 

In vain I wrote to Dr Hodgson (to whom I carried 
letters of introduction) telling him of my chief 
reason for visiting America a second time. Even 
the plea that I had known Mr Stainton Moses in 

* The portion of this chapter referring to *' Mrs Piper and her Con- 
trols" is published by kind permission of Mr Ralph Shirley, editor of 
The Occult Review, in which my article under this heading appeared in 
March 1906. 



196 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

earth life, and that we had several intimate friends 
in common, was of no avail. 

Dr Hodgson expressed regrets, but assured me 
that no sittings could be allowed under existing 
circumstances, and that it was impossible to make 
any exception to this rule. 

We seemed to have arrived at a cul-de-sac, when a 
bright idea struck me. 

Why not ask the unseen themselves for a decision 
in the matter ? 

I wrote again, therefore, to Dr Hodgson, sug- 
gesting this idea, and mentioning that I should 
arrive in Boston on a certain date, and could be 
found at the Hotel Belle vue in that city. 

The next day but one after my arrival, and quite 
early in the morning, Dr Hodgson came to call 
upon me. 

It was my first sight of that genial and delightful 
personality. At the very moment of shaking hands, 
he said cheerily, and with a look of half -rueful amuse- 
ment at his own discomfiture : 

" Well, you've got to come ! They insist upon 
it, so there is nothing more to be said." 

My preconceived ideas of a critical, elderly, and 
white-haired professor, taking himself very seriously, 
were dissipated on the spot ; and this was the begin- 
ning of a sincere and loyal friendship between us 
which lasted for nine years on this sphere, and will 
last, I trust and believe, through whatever forms 
of existence may succeed to this one. 

We made arrangements at once for my joining 
Dr Hodgson next morning at Arlington Heights, 
where my first sitting with Mrs Piper took place, 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 197 

and where I met for the first time this refined and 
interesting-looking woman. 

I was told that with the advent of the Imperator 
and Stainton Moses' controls, the character of Mrs 
Piper's mediumship had undergone a complete 
change. The former communications through the 
voice ceased, and gave place to automatic writing, 
except at the moment of return to the physical 
body, when a chance sentence or two might be 
uttered during the transition period, but that 
these were not always intelligible to the listener. 

Mrs Piper's arm and hand became curiously 
" dead " and Hmp when unconsciousness set in ; 
the blood departed, leaving it as white and helpless 
as that of a corpse. By degrees this dead look 
disappeared. The blood flowed once more through 
the veins, and as I noticed this change, the hand 
moved gropingly towards the pencil held out by 
Dr Hodgson, and finally grasped it. The latter's 
long practice and infinite patience were invaluable 
in making out the often rather illegible script. 
The hospitality he gave to all attempts at definite 
communications, however vague and shadowy at 
first ; the infinite patience with which he repeated 
again and again a question not fully comprehended — 
all this, combined with intelligent criticism, alert, 
dispassionate judgment and balance of mind, made 
an investigator of psychic phenomena very rarely 
to be met in a world where most of us evince in a 
marked degree " les defauts de nos qualites.'' 

To combine sympathy, patience, and receptivity 
with cool and critical judgment is well-nigh impos- 
sible for ordinary men and women. 



198 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

Dr Richard Hodgson certainly solved the problem 
to a very remarkable extent. 

The first thing that struck me in the two sittings 
I had with Mrs Piper, was the hopeless breakdown 
of the Thought Transference Theory, as accounting 
for the automatic writing. 

The ostensible reason for my presence at Arlington 
Heights was the idea entertained by the " controls " 
that, having known Mr Stainton Moses in earth life, 
I might be able to facilitate his communications. 
I hope this may have been the case, but if so, it was 
certainly not due to any power of Thought Trans- 
ference I may have possessed. 

Again and again I asked for names of friends we 
had known in common, but nearly always in vain. 
Even when, in despair of getting these normally, 
I concentrated my mind consciously on some short 
and easy name, the latter was not given. 

Yet next day some of these names would appear 
spontaneously on the script, when my mind was 
entirely occupied by other subjects. 

References were made to Mr Moses' lack of appre- 
ciation for music, and he asked whether our mutual 
friend Mrs Stratton still played Liszt. He also 
referred to his visiting the Strattons, and finding 
them playing duets together, in London. 

On my return to town Mrs Stratton fully endorsed 
the fact that Mr Moses disliked music (this was un- 
known to me), but she denied emphatically that she 
and her husband ever played duets in his presence. 
Mr Stratton, however, corrected this impression, and 
reminded her of several occasions when Mr Moses had 
come to them from University College, found them 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 199 

at the piano, and being on very intimate terms, had 
begged they would finish the passage or movement ; 
and on one or two occasions this had been done. 

These shght but evidential incidents, forgotten 
by Mrs Stratton herself, and unknown to me, were 
conveyed quite correctly in the automatic script 
through Mrs Piper — three thousand miles across the 
Atlantic — and nearly six years after the death of Mr 
Stainton Moses. 

The most convincing test upon these occasions, 
however, was the reference to a Mrs Lane — the 
lady to whom Mr Moses had been engaged when he 
passed away. 

Very few of his friends knew of this engagement, 
even in England. Dr Hodgson, who had never met 
Stainton Moses in earth life, had naturally not heard 
of it. It was only by chance that I knew anything 
of the matter, and this merely through once meeting 
the lady at Mrs Stratton's house some time after 
Mr Moses had died. On that occasion Mrs Lane had 
a young daughter with her ; I knew nothing of any 
other members of the family. 

During my second visit to Mrs Piper I mentioned 
meeting this lady — already a dim memory with 
me — and the " control " at once asked if I had met 
a sister also. 

I answered " No," remarking that a young 
daughter had been with her. 

The writing at once continued in these words : 

" Well, now I am giving you this as a test : she 
has a sister, and one who has been the cause of the 
deepest sorrow of her life. You will find this is 
true when you go back to England." 



200 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

These words were amply justified. 

On applying to Mrs Stratton for information, 
she denied the possibility of there being any truth 
in the test. She said : "I have come to know 
Mrs Lane very intimately since you met her here. 
I don't believe she has any sister ; anyway, I am 
quite sure she would have told me if a sister had 
caused her such sorrow as you mention." 

I persevered, however, in getting at the truth 
of the matter by writing to Mrs Lane herself (an 
almost entire stranger), and asking if she cared to 
hear the references to herself in the Piper records ; 
if so, would she come and lunch with me ? 

She came, and when I reached the passage about 
the sister, expecting that she would endorse Mrs 
Stratton's denial, I noticed, to my great surprise, 
that her eyes filled suddenly with tears, and that 
she was literally unable to speak through emotion. 

The tears ran down her cheeks, when at length 
she said in a broken voice : " That is the most 
convincing test he could have given me ! No ! I 
have never mentioned that sister, even to Mrs 
Stratton, kind and good as she has been " (by this 
time I had spoken of Mrs Stratton's denial of the 
sister's existence). " I could not speak of her to 
anyone. She was the cause of the greatest sorrow 
in my life ; hut no one upon earth knew this except 
Mr Stainton Moses. I was engaged to him at the 
time, and he was the natural person to turn to in 
my deep tribulation. No one else ever heard of 
the circumstances." 

At this second sitting of mine Mr Stainton 
Moses spoke also of a valuable watch he had 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 201 

possessed, and expressed some regret that it had not 
been given to Mrs Lane at the time of his death. 

I knew nothing at all about any watch of his, 
but on appeahng to one of his executors, an old 
friend of mine, found there was such a watch, which 
had been a presentation one, and was of considerable 
value. Upon the death of Mr Moses it had been 
given (quite with the approval of Mrs Lane) to the 
son of a very old and esteemed friend. 

This executor also told me, as a curious coinci- 
dence, that when I was staying with the excitable 
sensitive in Sussex Gardens, mentioned in a previous 
chapter, and he and his wife had come to tea with 
me one afternoon (to be introduced to this remark- 
able lady), she had given him a similar message 
about the same watch, purporting to come from 
Stainton Moses. 

I remember perfectly well having asked Mr and 
Mrs Harrington to come to tea with me one afternoon 
to meet my eccentric landlady, and I also remember 
his having a long talk with her whilst his wife and 
I were immersed in our own conversation. But I 
heard no details of this talk. He had merely said 
how much interested he had been in meeting Mrs 
Peters, and that she evidently had some medium- 
istic power. 

It was certainly curious that the watch should 
have been mentioned, first in Sussex Gardens, 
London, and six years later in Arlington Heights, 
Boston, and that on each occasion the same wish 
with regard to it should have been expressed ! 

During this Arlington Heights sitting (the second 
one), Mr Moses also referred to an MS., of which I 



202 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

knew nothing at the time. This allusion also was 
verified by his other executor, the late Mr Alaric 
Watts, upon my return to England. 

During this visit to America I also came across 
a Mr Knapton Thompson, a hard-headed York- 
shire man, who had invented a new kind of smoke- 
less combustion stove, which must have been a 
good one, for our shrewd American cousins were 
employing him to put up these stoves in several 
public buildings, including the Smithsonian Insti- 
tute in Washington. 

Mr Thompson combined psychic proclivities 
with his smokeless invention, and had become 
greatly interested in the New York medium, Mrs 
Stoddart Gray, who has been already mentioned in 
connection with my own investigations, twelve 
years previous to my present visit. He had written 
to tell Mr Stead of his experiences, which included 
several in which the Julia of " Julia's Letters " 
had purported to be present. 

Mr Stead had turned this gentleman over to me 
by giving me an introduction, accompanied by the 
request that " I should see the man and report what 
I thought about him and his wonderful experiences." 

So I asked Mr Thompson to call upon me, and 
arranged to be present with him next day (Saturday) 
at Mrs Stoddart Gray's circle. 

I found that he had taken up his abode with the 
medium and her son during his short stays in New 
York, with the openly expressed intention of finding 
out if there were any trickery behind the scenes. 
He had, however, convinced himself of her bond 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 203 

fides, and was deeply interested in the interviews 
he was able to obtain by means of these mediums, 
with a daughter he had lost some years previously. 
He was much pleased to find that I knew Mrs Gray 
already and could also testify to some very remark- 
able phenomena occurring to me at her house. 

So I met him there next afternoon, with every 
expectation of a good sitting. These hopes, however, 
were entirely destroyed owing to the presence of a 
noisy, vulgar man, whom they called the " Whisky 
King." He made the most inane remarks, cracked 
stupid jokes, antagonised every respectable person 
in the room, I should suppose ; and as all this took 
place without a word of protest from the lady of 
the house, one can only conclude that she considered 
it worth her while to endure his vulgarities. 

Certainly the afternoon was spoilt for the rest 
of us, and I remarked upon this to a very pleasant, 
smart-looking young American lady when the sit- 
ting was over and we had retired to the reception- 
room to find wraps and galoshes, etc. 

" Oh yes ; wasn't he just exasperating ? " she 
said, with ready sympathy. 

She looked much too young and smart and 
good-looking for the ordinary type of " investigator," 
and I could not refrain from asking how she had 
come into this gaUre. 

She explained her position readily, and it was 
very interesting to me. 

She was a young married lady, and had first been 
brought to the house, six months before, by a 
cousin of hers who was staying with them in New 
York, and thought the experience might be amusing. 



204 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

" We just came in for a joke," she said ; " but 
something happened which interested me so much 
that I have come again several times, and until 
to-day have always had an interesting time." 

Then she told me about her first sitting. 

I had noticed upon her ungloved hand a very 
beautiful scarahceus, set in fine gold, and evidently 
by an artist in the craft. " Yes, it is a Tiffany 
setting," she observed, seeing my eyes drawn to 
it. She took off the ring, and gave it into my hands. 

" That ring is really the cause of my being here 
to-day," she continued. " The scarabseus was given 

to me some years ago by Professor " (she gave 

the name of a well-known American Egyptologist). 
*' He made a great pet of me when I was a child, and 
I begged it from him. When I was going to be 
married last year he insisted upon having it set for 
me by Tiffany as a wedding present, and he then 
told me there was no doubt at all about its being a 
genuine antique. He had come across it many years 
before by a curious chance when travelling in 
Egypt, and had been assured that it was a genuine 
Cleopatra relic. ' I can't answer for that,' he said, 
laughing, ' but it is certainly many centuries old. 
I have no doubt it is genuine so far as age goes.' 
Well, the night my cousin and I came here together 
I did not take off my gloves until after we had gone in 
to the seance room, so no one could have seen my 
ring — and you know Mrs Gray's sittings always 
begin in the dark ? I took my gloves off when I 
found we had to sit in a circle holding hands, and 
one of the first materialisations was announced to be 
that of Cleopatra." (/ had seen " Cleopatra " more 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 205 

than once in 1886, in the same house — E. K. B.) 
" She rushed across the room in the complete dark- 
ness, seized my right hand, amongst all the hands 
in a circle of twenty people or more, almost tore 
this special ring from my linger, and said in a tone 
of indescribable grief and longing : ' Mine ! Mine ! 
Ah, Chem ! Chem ! ' " 

This was sufficiently startling, even apart from 
the mention of Chem, as the ancient name for 
Egypt, in a milieu of this kind ! 

The ring was faithfully restored later in the 
evening ; and the young lady who owned it had been 
sufficiently impressed by the circumstances to 
confide them to her kind professor, and also to pay 
more than one visit to Mrs Stoddart Gray since the 
episode had occurred, which was just six months 
before our meeting there. 

During this second visit to America I made the 
acquaintance, and, I trust I may say, gained the 
friendship, of Miss Lilian Whiting, so well known by 
many thousands of grateful readers. We saw a 
great deal of each other in Boston, and during one 
of my long chats with her in her pretty sitting- 
room at the Brunswick Hotel, she told me of the 
visit of Lady Henry Somerset and Miss Frances 
Willard to that city, some years before our con- 
versation. Miss Whiting also mentioned a friend 
who had accompanied these two ladies, and who 
had been taken ill, and had died very suddenly in 
the hospital at Boston. 

" I never met the lady," said Miss Whiting, 
" but Miss Willard and Lady Henry told me they 
had been obliged to leave their friend behind owing 



2o6 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

to an attack of influenza, and asked me to call upon 
her some ay . I went a day or two later, carrying 
some fruit and newspapers with me. The matron, 
whom I knew well, said her patient was doing 
splendidly, and was likely to be leaving in a few 
days, but that as I was a stranger, it would perhaps 
be better for me not to come in and see her that 
afternoon. So I left my little gifts, and was shocked 
next day to hear 6i her sudden and quite unexpected 
death. By-the-by, I believe she was Stead's 
' Julia ' — I am not sure about this, but some- 
body told me so lately." 

Miss Whiting then mentioned the lady's name, 
which I withhold, as Mr Stead still makes use of 
it as a test when strangers profess to be in com- 
munication with " Julia." 

The day following the seance just described as 
taking place in New York, Mr Knapton Thompson 
called at my hotel to ask me to accompany him to 
Mrs Stoddart Gray, as he had arranged to have a 
short " writing seance " that afternoon. 

The son was the agent as usual. On this occasion 
he had an alphabet mounted on card, and pointed 
to the letters in turn, whilst his mother wrote them 
down as indicated. Thinking I would verify Miss 
Whiting's story if possible, my first question was : 

" Can Stead's Julia give me her surname ? " 

" Julia O." was spelt out, and then the O was 
given again. 

" They often do that," said Mrs Gray casually — 
" begin the name over again, I mean." 

So it passed at that. The rest of the letters cor- 
roborated the surname mentioned by Miss Whiting. 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 207 

Then I asked : "In what country did you pass 
away — Europe or America, or elsewhere ? " 

^'America'' was spelt out at once. 

" In what city ? " 

" Boston:' 

" Was it in a private house, a hospital, a hotel, 
or where did you die ? " 

" In a hospital " was again spelt out. 

" How long ago ? " 

" Five years " was the answer. 

I may note here that Miss Whiting had not men- 
tioned the number of years, only having said 
" A few years ago " when speaking of the event. 
Five years proved to be true. My last question 
was : 

" What was your age when you passed over ? " 

" Twenty-three " was the answer. 

This last, I felt sure, must be wrong. Miss Whiting 
had not mentioned any age, but it seemed to me 
unlikely that so young a woman should have been 
travelling round the country with two temperance 
lecturers. 

When these answers were being given, Mrs Gray's 
son, the medium, asked if he might put one hand on 
my wrist to come into magnetic conditions with 
me. 

I agreed to this, but said I should turn my eyes 
away from the alphabet, lest my muscles should 
give him any unconscious indications. 

When I sent these answers to Mr Stead on return- 
ing to England, I wrote down JuHa O. (ignoring 
the repetition of the O) ; and in connection with 
the other answers, told him, of course, of my previous 



208 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

conversation with Miss Whiting, which reduced 
the whole episode to one of possible Thought Trans- 
ference. 

In answering me he said : "I am glad Julia was 
able to give her name, even if it were Thought 
Transference ; but, as a matter of fact, it is not her 
whole name which you received — she always signed 
her letters to me ' Julia 0. 0. . . ' " This makes 
rather a good bit of evidence, seeing that the second 
O had been given, but discarded by Mrs Gray and 
myself as a repetition of the first letter of the surname ! 

To resume my experiences with Mr Knapton 
Thompson. 

In the evening of this writing incident Mrs Gray 
had another public seance, at which I was again 
present, Mr Thompson sitting on one side of me. 

After some " materialisations," for other members 
of the circle had appeared, Mrs Gray announced that 
Stead's " Julia " was present in the cabinet, and 
wished to speak to me. 

I went up at once, and the form came out and stood 
in very fair light from the gas-burners. She seized 
my hands with every appearance of delight and eager- 
ness, and her grasp was strong and tense. It is my 
peculiarity always to notice hands very accurately. 
They always seem to me to indicate character very 
closely ; and apart from this, I am attracted by people 
who have well-shaped hands (not necessarily small 
ones), and find it very difficult to ignore clumsy or 
ugly fingers, which, unfortunately, never escape my 
notice. 

Now the medium's hands were broad, short, and 
flabby, as I had had plenty of opportunities of noting 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 209 

in the afternoon when he held my wrist. The hands 
which grasped mine now were, on the contrary, well 
made, small, and rather narrow, the true type of the 
American female hand. 

Mr Thompson had come up also to greet " Julia,'* 
and I whispered to him : 

" Do ask Julia if there was not a mistake about her 
age this afternoon." 

" No ; you ask the question yourself, Miss Bates," 
he answered. 

So I said rather eagerly : " Julia, do tell us, please, 
if there was not a mistake this afternoon in your age 
— the answer was twenty-three. Is that correct ? " 

A very emphatic shake of the head signifying " No " 
was the reply to this last question, but no sounds pro- 
ceeded from the lips. 

Disappointed by this, I asked : *' Can you not 
speak to us ? " 

She made a little gesture of rather helpless dissent ; 
and Mrs Gray, who stood by, explained that prob- 
ably all her strength had gone to building up the 
materialised body sufficiently to make it visible to 
us. Julia bowed her head in assent to this, and 
then, still speechless, retired once more behind the 
curtains. 

I did not mention this appearance of Julia when 
writing to Mr Stead on my return — I was so anxiously 
hoping that she might have tried to impress the fact 
of having appeared to me, upon his consciousness, as a 
test ; but he said nothing about it in his first letters. 
So I let the matter alone for a time, determining to 
tell him some day, but much disappointed by the 
usual failure in getting corroborative evidence. 



210 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

A week later, however, at the end of a long letter 
on other subjects, I put this short P. S. in a casual 
way to him : 

" Did Julia ever tell you that she had appeared to 
me in New York ? " 

In answering my letter he replied — also in a 
P. S. : 

" By-the-by, to answer your last query — yes. 
Julia told me weeks ago that she had appeared to 
you in New York, but that she could not give you her 
age on that occasion, because she was not accustomed to 
speaking through the embodiment.^'' 

Now in sending the list of questions and answers 
to Mr Stead I had merely marked against the answer 
as to her age, " twenty-three,^'' that doubtless it was an 
error, but I had never hinted to him that I had asked her 
to correct the error in New York, or that she had been 
unable to speak on that occasion. 

This again was a good bit of independent evidence. 

I will now give a description of Mr Knapton 
Thompson's interview with his daughter, on the same 
evening that Julia appeared to me. I have already 
said that the magnet which drew Mr Thompson to 
these seances was the opportunity given to him of 
meeting and talking to a daughter who had passed 
away some years previously. 

On this special evening the daughter materialised 
as usual, and came out from the cabinet. As Mr 
Thompson was sitting next to me at the time, I could 
distinctly hear Mrs Gray whisper to him : 

" Would you not like to take your daughter into the 
other room, Mr Thompson ? It is rather crowded 
here to-night. You would be quieter in there." 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 211 

Mr Thompson got up at once, and greeted the 
materialised form, and they disappeared through the 
folding doors to the reception-room. Other matters 
of interest were occurring, and I had quite forgotten 
the absence of Mr Thompson in the dimly lighted 
room (in those days the light was always dim at first), 
until I found he was again occupying the seat next to 
my own. I had not noticed his return, and asked 
him at once ' what he had done with his daughter.' 
A good half hour must have elapsed between his 
disappearance and return. He said, quite simply 
and as a matter of course : " Oh, she did not care to 
come back into this crowded room. We had half-an- 
hour's chat, and then she de-materialised in the other 
room, and I returned alone." 

I can only repeat that Mr Knapton Thompson was 
a shrewd, practical Yorkshire man, and a very success- 
ful man of business, as was proved by the orders he 
received in America for the stoves he had invented. 

He was certainly under the impression that he 
could be trusted to recognise his own daughter when 
allowed the privilege of half-an-hour's conversation 
with her, tete-a-tete in a private room. 

I cannot end this chapter without saying some- 
thing about Keely of Philadelphia and his intuitional 
genius. 

I had hoped to have the opportunity of meeting 
this wonderful man during my last stay in Philadel- 
phia, U.S.A. (March 1897), but was disappointed in 
this expectation. Therefore, on the outer plane, my 
connection with Keely never went beyond a single 
interview with his wife ; but this is a record of 
personal intuitions as well as of personal events, and 



212 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

I know no one with regard to whom my intuitions — 
absolutely lacking in any physical ground of proof, 
or even mental ground of comprehension — have been 
stronger or more obstinate. 

At the time of my first visit to America, so far back 
as 1885, I had not the faintest conception of Keely's 
work, or what he claimed to have discovered or to be 
on the track of discovering. I never heard his name 
mentioned without being told at the same time that 
he was either a silly madman or a conscious impostor, 
and as I came with an entirely unprejudiced mind 
(for I had never heard of Keely before landing in 
America), it would have been natural to accept this 
universal opinion. 

Yet something stronger than reason was always 
silently contradicting these assertions, when made in 
my presence. Friends and acquaintances alike in 
those days laughed at Keely's claims, and denounced 
his boasted discovery as pure imposture. 

" 'Tisn't ! 'Tisn't ! 'Tisn't ! " that persistent 
little voice kept whispering in my ear all the time, like 
a naughty, obstinate child who contradicts from 
sheer ignorance — or was it a spiritual intuition ? 
Time alone can answer that question ; anyway, I kept 
my ideas to myself, for they had no foundation in 
fact at the time of which I speak. 

In 1897 the position for me was altered. A 
sensible and dependable friend of mine — a well-known 
banker in Philadelphia — described to me his ex- 
periences and those of other prominent citizens during 
a demonstration of Mr Keely's powers ; and the old 
insistent voice that spoke to my ignorance before, 
spoke now to some glimmering understanding of 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 213 

the claim put forth. This claim — even then jeered 
at by the world at large — had to wait shivering in the 
cold another nine years, before Mr Frederic Soddy 
clothed it in respectable scientific garb by speaking 
publicly of the possibihties in the future connected 
with atomic disintegration and consequent liberation 
of energy. 

But the yelping curs of Calumny that pursued 
Keely during his lifetime are still upon the dead man's 
tracks. 

" His methodswere fraudand imposture, anyway " ; 
" His wires were tubes containing compressed air," 
and so forth. The M.F.H. of this pack of hounds 
was the son of a lady whose name will always be 
honourably mentioned with that of Keely as one of 
his most generous supporters. 

The initial misfortune in the whole matter was the 
forming and starting of the Keely Motor Company 
to utilise the discovery, which should first have been 
placed under the protection of Science. 

Ignorant and impatient shareholders thought only 
of their own material advantages and dividends. 
They were Keely 's first enemies, with their sensational 
and premature advertisements of results and " 200 
horse-power engines ready to patent, etc.,'''' whilst the 
poor man was still struggling with his tremendous 
problem — i.e. to control the force that he had dis- 
covered. 

He attempted this first by confining it, but it 
blew everything to atoms, and his own fingers off into 
the bargain ! 

Occultists — including Madame Blavatsky — always 
declared this latent atomic energy was a fact, but that 



214 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

Keely would never be allowed to demonstrate it, for 
the world was not yet prepared for such a tremendous 
dynamic force to be let loose upon it, and that the 
most serious abuses and disasters would follow, if 
once he succeeded in bringing his discovery into 
practical working order. 

They said it would be one of two things : either 
Keely's experiments in this direction would con- 
tinue to fail in the crucial point necessary, or that if 
he succeeded it would be his own death warrant, 
lest any mischief should accrue from his making his 
methods public. 

In view of these pronouncements, the succeeding 
events in Keely's career are interesting. 

The Times (U.S.A.) of 6th March 1898 contained 
the following announcement, under Keely's own 
signature :— 

After twenty -five years' labour I have solved 
the problem of harnessing the ether (which else- 
where he says is only the medium of the force he dis- 
covered) and adapting it to commercial uses. I have 
finished experimenting. — My work is now completed. 
(Signed) John W. Keely. 

On 18th November of this same year he died. 

Within two months, his generous friend and patron, 
Mrs Blomfield Moore, followed him to another sphere. 
Keely's final discovery of the means of " harnessing 
the ether," as he calls it, was through holding it in 
rotation instead of in confinement. 

I am allowed to quote an extract from a private 
letter with regard to this statement. 

" This instrument ruptures the luminous envelopes 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 215 

of the hydrogen corpuscles, hberating the mysterious 
substance, which is put into such high rotation that 
it forms its own wall of confinement at 420,000 re- 
volutions per second, as calculated. Independent of 
this rotation in the tube, where it is projected, it 
could be no more held in suspension than a ray of sun- 
shine could be held in a darkened room." 

I have been given to understand that a faithful 
account of everything that has occurred in connection 
with Keely's discovery has been compiled, and will 
be published " when the time comes for the truth to be 
made known ^ 

It is, of course, possible that this disclosure may be 
anticipated by the arrival of another " crank and 
impostor " of the Keely tj^pe. Let us trust he may 
arise from within and not from without, scientific 
circles, and thus avoid his martyrdom ! 

Meanwhile it may be interesting to quote from a 
published letter of Lascelles-Scott, the Government 
physicist from Forest Gate, who visited Keely's work- 
shop in the interests of Science, and who was allowed 
to cut and bring away with him pieces of the wire 
Keely was using. (Said to be tubes by the wiseacres !) 

The following is the essential portion of Mr 
Lascelles-Scott 's letter. I only omit courteous ex- 
pressions of gratitude to the editor and " to the 
institutions and individuals alike " of the " beautiful 
city of Philadelphia " where he was able to carry out 
his investigations. 

Letter from Mr Lascelles-Scott to the Editor 
of The Public Ledger, Philadelphia. 

The only corrections of sufficient importance, to 



2i6 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

the general sense of my observations at the Franklin 
Institute last Wednesday night, to call for notice in 
your otherwise admirable report, are the follow- 
ing :— 

Although my observations were only put forward 
as " preliminary," inasmuch as I have not yet com- 
pleted the outlined programme I had in view, no 
words actually used by me justified the expression 
that " I had formed no very definite opinions.''^ 

On the contrary, I stated more than once the very 
definite opinion that Mr Keely has demonstrated to 
me, in a way which is absolutely unquestionable, the 
existence of a force hitherto unknown. (The italics 
are mine. — E. K. B.) 

The conditions under which the experiments were 
carried out (as I distinctly stated) were such as to 
preclude the possibility of the results obtained being 
due to any ordinary source of power, evident or con- 
cealed. 

Moreover, I satisfied myself that the rotation of the 
'* vibrod3nie " was neither due to, nor accompanied by, 
any traces of electricity or magnetism. So far my 
opinion is and was expressed as being of the most 
definite kind possible. 

... I stated, and the statement was greeted by the 
audience with great and prolonged applause, that, 
after a httle adjustment of the '' Sympathetic Trans- 
mitter," it was found that by the sounding of one of the 
small English tuning forks I had brought with me 
from the other side of the Atlantic, upon the said 
" Transmitter," I could myself start the vibrodyne, 
and cause it to revolve rapidly, without Mr Keely's 
intervention, and I exhibited to the meeting, the fork 



FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA 217 

actually used by me. — Thanking you in anticipation, 
etc., I am, sir, yours obediently, 

W. Lascelles-Scott. 

One would have supposed that this testimony, in 
addition to that of other scientists and practical 
electricians, would have sufficed to disintegrate 
Atomic Stupidity and Calumny, and liberate the 
forces of Humility and Sane Investigation. 

But prejudiced Ignorance dies hard ! 

To end my chapter on a pleasanter note than this, 
I will quote from a private letter which I have been 
privileged to read, the beautiful words in which 
Keely describes his own achievements. 

I have no power that is not communicated to me in 
the same way that this machine receives its power : 
through celestial radiation from the Soul of Matter, the 
Mind force of the Creator, whose instrument I am. I 
know who is leading me and making all things work 
together for good. 



CHAPTER XI 

A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND 

In the year 1898 I was spending a few days in Castle 
Rush, which has been described by Mr W. T. Stead 
as the most haunted castle in Ireland. It is one of the 
few old Irish castles still inhabited, and is naturally 
haunted by the ghosts of the past in every meaning 
of the word. 

At the time of my stay I was recovering from a 
severe illness, and, in fact, was sent off to bed im- 
mediately upon arrival by my kind hostess, who, with 
true hospitality, thought more of her guest's comfort 
than the conventionalities of life, and would not hear 
of my lingering, even to make acquaintance with my 
host, on the dark autumnal evening of my arrival. 

This had taken place after driving many miles and 
waiting for a dreary long time in the little inn of a 
small Irish township. My doctor would not hear of 
any railway travelling just then, so the whole forty 
miles from my last stopping-place had to be negoti- 
ated between the carriages of my past and present 
hospitable hosts. 

As a matter of fact, I believe I slept in one of the 
haunted rooms, but it looked cheerful enough when I 
entered from the gloom and darkness outside ; and a 
dainty little dinner sent up by my kind friends below, 
and eaten when snugly tucked in between the sheets 

218 



A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND 219 

and resting on soft downy pillows, was enough to 
drive all thoughts of ghostly visitors from my head. 

I am thankful to say that I neither heard nor saw 
anything during my short visit, and should not even 
have known that my room had had any evil reputation 
but for the visit of an eccentric and clever old lady, who 
had been specially asked to the castle to meet me. 

After luncheon we adjourned to my bedroom, at 
her suggestion, and she said casually : 

*' Ah, you have this room, I see. It was terribly 
haunted once, but I held a sort of little service here 
some time ago, and cleared them all out." 

I must explain that this good lady took a very 
optimistic view of her own capacities and powers in 
general, and spoke — from the psychic point of view — 
with the honest pride that a flesh and blood char- 
woman might display on going over premises that she 
had thoroughly scrubbed and " cleaned out " ! 

One morning after breakfast, my hostess, Mrs Kent, 
called to me to come quickly and see a curious sight. 
It was a pouring wet da}^ — one of those days when the 
heavens open and the rain descends in buckets ? I 
could see nothing more remarkable than the damp, 
autumnal leaves, the bare trees swaying in the wind- 
washed spaces, and the pouring, ceaseless rain. 

*' Don't you see that girl over there ? " 

I looked again, and did see a girl just emerging 
from a clump of beeches, and carrying a small trunk 
upon her head. 

" What an extraordinary day to choose for travel- 
ling," I said drily. 

" Ah, that is Irish superstition ! " rejoined my 
hostess. " That is my last kitchen-maid you see — 



220 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

she is walking seven miles, with that trunk on her 
head, sooner than wait a few hours, when I could 
have sent her to the station." 

" Is she mad ? " was my natural comment. 

" Oh no ! only desperately frightened. She has 
not been here a week yet, and she is much too terrified 
to be coherent. All I can make out is that nothing 
on earth would induce her to spend another night at 
Rush. I could have sent her over to Marley easily to- 
morrow morning at eight o'clock, but she would not 
hear of it. And whether she has really seen anything, 
or only been frightened by the stories of the other 
servants, I don't know. Anyway, she has certainly 
the courage of her opinions, and is prepared to suffer 
for them ! I would rather meet half-a-dozen ghosts 
than carry that trunk on my head seven miles in this 
pouring rain." Then turning round carelessly, she 
remarked : "I suppose you have not seen or heard 
anything. Miss Bates, since you came ? I hope not, 
for I am sure you are not strong enough for mundane 
visitors yet, let alone the other kind." 

We were passing through the handsome circular 
hall at the time, and I said eagerly : " Oh no ! 
Thank goodness, I've seen and heard nothing. I 
don't think I should be allowed to see anything 
whilst I am so weak and poorly." 

Almost at the moment of saying thescxwords some- 
thing impelled me to place my hand upon a particular 
spot in the great stone wall by my side. " But there 
is something here I don't like," I said, tapping it — 
" something uncanny — but I don't know what it is." 

Mrs Kent made no remark ; and I thought no more 
of the circumstance until the following year, when I 



A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND 221 

was told by Mr Stead that Mrs Kent was over in 
England, and had been lunching with him and asking 
for me. 

" She was giving me a most graphic account of the 
way you ' spotted ' those skeletons at Rush Castle," 
he said. 

I was completely puzzled by this remark. I had 
never spotted a single skeleton to my knowledge, 
either at Rush or elsewhere, and I told him so ; but 
he persisted in saying that Mrs Kent had told him a 
very different story, and that most certainly she had 
mentioned me as the percipient. 

" She must have mixed me up with somebody else," 
was my final comment. " No doubt many people 
have queer experiences there, and she might naturally 
make such a mistake." 

" Well, I gave her your address, and she is writing 
to ask you to have tea with her at the club, so you and 
she can fight it out there," he said ; and the conversa- 
tion drifted into other channels. 

Next afternoon I met Mrs Kent at her club, and 
before leaving, fortunately remembered the curious 
mistake about the skeletons I had " spotted." 

" But you did ' spot ' them," she said, laughing. 
" Don't you remember my asking you if you had 
noticed anything curious, or heard or seen anything, 
during your visit ? At first you said ' Thank good- 
ness, no ! ' But immediately afterwards you put your 
hand on a particular part of the circular hall, and said : 
* There is something uncanny just here — something 
I don't like.' " 

" Yes ; I remember all that. But what of it ? 
You never told me anything about skeletons." 



222 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

" Of course not — you were not in a condition of 
health to discuss such eerie questions just then. 
All the same, you had located the exact spot where 
only a week before your visit, my husband's agent 
told him that two skeletons had been found bricked 
up!" 

She then explained that the agent had been on the 
estate for many years, even before the death of the 
late owner of Rush — ^her father-in-law. Having 
some business with her husband the week before my 
arrival, this agent had casually mentioned that he and 
the former owner had found these skeletons in the 
very spot indicated by me, about forty years pre- 
viously, and, strange to relate, had bricked them up 
again instead of burying them. This last fact may 
account in part at least for the spooky reputation of 
Castle Rush. 

All good psychics know that nothing disturbs a 
spirit so much as any informality about his funeral 
arrangements ! 

To return to my visit to Castle Rush. 

Some years previously I had met, on an Orient 
steamer sailing from Ceylon to Naples, a brother of the 
owner of Rush. He was a sailor, and as hard-headed 
and practical a man as it has ever been my lot to 
meet. It was in no way through meeting him that 
my visit to Rush came about, but owing to my ac- 
quaintance with Mrs Kent and her family. 

I had been greatly taken by the genial common- 
sense of this Captain Kent, and was much grieved to 
hear of his death when I stayed with his sister-in-law. 
It had occurred shortly before my visit, and under sad 
circumstances. 



A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND 223 

On the surface he was certainly more lacking in 
sentiment than anyone I ever met, but must have been 
capable of very deep affection. When I met him he 
had only been married for a few months. His wife 
died within two years of their marriage, and going for 
a short holiday to Castle Rush soon afterwards, he 
said to his sister-in-law : 

" / shall not live a year after her, I know .' " He was 
the last kind of man to make such a speech, as both 
Mrs Kent and I observed when she mentioned it to 
me. 

" But he was quite right, all the same," she added. 
" He died just three days within the year from the time 
of his wife's death. '^ Yet he was an exceptionally 
strong, sturdy, and wiry man at the time of his great 
sorrow. 

From Castle Rush I was going to the south of 
Ireland to visit relations at Cork. 

On the morning of my departure I was down in the 
drawing-room, rather wondering why I had been 
brought to this old Irish castle. No special object 
seemed to have been achieved by my visit. I did 
not even know then that I had discovered two 
skeletons ! In those days I found so often some 
train of circumstances — a borrowed book, a stranger 
coming across my path, some unexpected visit paid, 
which were later found to have been factors in a special 
experience — that I was rather surprised to realise that 
I was leaving the " most haunted castle in Ireland '* 
and that nothing had happened. 

But in the very moment of saying this to myself a 
curiously insistent impression came to me quite 
suddenly, and " out of the blue." 



224 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

The impression was that the brother of my host, 
Captain Kent, was wishing very urgently to com- 
municate something through me. I did not feel equal 
to taking any message at the time — I have already 
explained that I was only just recovering from a 
severe illness. Lunch and a long drive to the station 
and a weary railway journey lay before me, so I de- 
termined to do nothing until I was safely established 
with niy cousins near Cork. 

After a long, cold, and wet journey I arrived in 
pouring rain, my train being more than a hour late. 
The kind General who came to meet me was still 
patiently standing on the platform, but one of the two 
" cars " he had engaged for me and my baggage had 
taken itself off ! As the rain was descending in water- 
spouts, I need scarcely say it was the " covered car " 
which had driven away ! 

This meant a thorough wetting for my cousin and 
me. How all the luggage (including a large bicycle, 
and two people, in addition to the driver) was ever 
piled up on that small ** outside Irish car " I 
have never been able to understand. Suffice it to 
say the miracle was performed, and we drove up a 
hill at an angle of about forty-five degrees into the 
bargain ! 

Clearly these were not ideal conditions for receiving 
automatic messages ! 

T was put to bed at once with hot bottles and hot 
soup, and soon forgot my past troubles in a long re- 
freshing sleep. 

I was still in the invalid stage of " breakfast in 
bed," and when this had been cleared away, the re- 
membrance of Captain Kent flashed into my mind, 



A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND 225 

and I found pencil and papers at once, in order to 
redeem my promise. 

The message was rather a curious one, and its 
opening sentence evidently referred to the eccentric 
old lady whom I have mentioned as being asked to 
meet me at luncheon at Castle Rush. 

So far as I can remember them, the words (very 
characteristic of Captain Kent's genial but rather 
brusque style) ran as follows : — 

After speaking of the alleged hauntings at Castle 
Rush as having only too much foundation in fact, he 
went on : " It's all rubbish, that old woman say- 
ing she had cleared them all away ! Nothing of the 
kind. There are plenty of malicious spirits about 
still, and now that an heir is coming to Rush they are 
keener than ever to try and work some mischief. No 
use saying anything to Tom (his brother). He will 
only laugh, and say it is all skittles. But cell my 
little sister-in-law to PRAY— PRAY— PRAY. 
That is all they need and all she needs either." 

Now this was not exactly the message one cared to 
send to a rather recent acquaintance. To begin with, 
the reference to Mrs Kent's valued friend in the open- 
ing sentence was scarcely polite ! Then again, the 
prophecy of an heir to Rush was one that I regretted 
should have been made, as it would probably only 
lead to disappointment. Mrs Kent's first child had 
been a little son, from whose loss she had never re- 
covered. When I was staying at the castle, two nice 
little girls, old enough to come down to early dinner, 
at our luncheon hour, comprised the family. Another 
child was certainly expected to arrive about Christ- 
mas-time (my visit was paid in September), but Mrs 



226 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

Kent herself was fully convinced that this would be 
another girl, as she said rather sadly. It seemed a 
pity to disturb her mind by raising false hopes. 

But, as usual, I felt bound to send the message, 
with the customary explanations and apologies. 

Mrs Kent was greatly interested by it and by the 
" PRAY— PRAY— PRAY," which, as she explained 
to me, had a very special meaning for her. It had 
only struck me as an exceedingly unlikely message 
for the Captain Kent I had known, to send to anyone. 

I am glad to be able to record that the Christmas 
gift did arrive in the shape of a baby boy, " heir to 
Rush,^^ who is still alive and flourishing, thank God ! 
I hear that he calls himself " the master," with a 
true Irish brogue, and lords it over his elder sisters 
in the regular chieftain style ! 

To this year belongs another strong impression of 
psychic atmosphere, left in a room which I occupied 
in the south of England. 

It was a most comfortable room, with nothing in 
the least ghostly about it. Merely I had an un- 
pleasant feeling that controversies and discussions 
had taken place in the room, and that a want of 
harmony hung about it in consequence. 

On mentioning this rather tentatively to the master 
of the house — a very orthodox clergyman — I was 
told : "Oh dear, no ! Nothing of the kind — ^you 
are certainly mistaken ! " 

But when an opportunity arose I changed my 
room, and felt very much more comfortable in conse- 
quence of doing so. 

Several times I had noticed on the hall table, letters 
which had come by post addressed to another clergy- 



A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND 227 

man, whose name I had not heard, and who was cer- 
tainly not staying in the house. Remarking upon this 
casually to a nice young governess one day, she said 
at once that the gentleman in question had spent 
several months with Mr and Mrs Dale in the Vicarage, 
but that he had died a few weeks before my arrival. 
" He slept in the room you had when you first came, 
by-the-by. I was so glad when you changed your 
room." 

" He was a clergyman, I see," was my next 
remark ; and I looked at the envelope which had 
led to this explanation. 

" Yes ; he was in orders, but he had become a com- 
plete agnostic for some years. During the last few 
weeks of his life — when he had to keep his bed — Mr 
Dale was always going up there, and having long 
arguments and discussions with him ; but I don't 
suppose it did much good : it only worried him very 
much. He was too ill to listen to long arguments 
then, and wanted just kind, soothing words, I should 
have thought." 

As the girl retreated to the school-room I naturally 
pondered over this fresh testimony to the truth of 
psychic atmosphere. No sensitive can question the 
fact, but at present we know little or nothing of the 
laws which condition the fact. 

My friend Mr W. T. Stead kindly allows me to 
mention another incident connected with personal 
experiences of mine in the year 1898. 

In the opening month of that year he lost a much- 
valued friend, who had worked for him loyally, both 
in his office and also with regard to some of his 
philanthropic schemes. 



228 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

This lady in a fit of delirium, incident upon a severe 
attack of illness, threw herself out of a window in her 
fiat. A fortnight before this sad occurrence, she had 
seen another resident in the same set of flats throw 
herself out of the window, and Mr Stead has always 
feared that this acted as a suggestion upon her mind 
in delirium, and led her to do the same thing. Her 
own account of the cause of her action differs some- 
what from this impression, as will be seen later. 

Mr Stead was naturally greatly affected by Mrs 
Morris' sudden death and the circumstances attend- 
ing it, and having some of her hair cut off after her 
death, he sent portions of it to at least twelve well- 
known clairvoyants, hoping to receive some satis- 
factory solution of the mystery, and also, possibly, a 
sign decided upon between him and this lady. They 
were both interested in psychic matters, and had 
agreed to believe in no communications from the 
other side purporting to come from one or other of 
them, unless this preliminary sign were given. 

Mrs Besant — an intimate friend of Mr Stead — ^was 
one of the oracles consulted, and was very confident 
of being able to find out all details, including the 
mystic sign. 

But both she and Mr Leadbeater were as absolutely 
unsuccessful as less gifted mortals proved to be. 

In spite of exceptional opportunities for coming in 
touch with the most noted psychics, in spite of the 
valuable clue given by hair cut after death, the test 
seemed quite hopeless, since twelve of the best 
clairvoyants had been consulted, and all had failed in 
turn. 

A few weeks after hearing about this from Mr Stead, 



A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND 229 

I was invited by an old friend in London to meet at 
her house, at luncheon, Miss Rowan Vincent, a non- 
professional sensitive, well known to many of my 
readers. 

I had never seen this lady before, and had little 
speech with her during the meal. 

She was talking very earnestly to a military man — 
the son-in-law of our hostess — whilst the latter and I 
were having an interesting conversation to ourselves. 

General Maxwell, having a train to catch, did not 
accompany us to the drawing-room. 

On arrival there Miss Rowan Vincent said to me 
very kindly : " Can I do anything for you now, Miss 
Bates ? Shall I try if I can see anything for you ? " 

Something induced me, quite against my will, to 
say : "Do you ever get messages by wTiting, Miss 
Vincent ? " 

" No ; I have never done so, but I can try," she 
answered rather eagerly. 

How I bewailed my stupidity in making such a 
suggestion ! I had diverted her mind from her own 
special gift, which was that of seeing a person's 
psychic surroundings, and had switched her on to an 
entirely novel and untried experiment. I had not 
even the excuse of being specially interested in auto- 
matic writing, which was so easily obtained at home ; 
whereas I was greatly interested in seeing whether 
any of my " other side " friends could make them- 
selves perceptible through this sensitive. 

However, the mischief was done past remedy. The 
suggestion had taken firm root in Miss Rowan 
Vincent's mind, and she was not to be diverted from 
it. So I resigned myself patiently to the results of 



230 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

my own foolish remark, whilst she took pencil and 
paper and sat down expectantly. 

Soon she looked up, the writing having already 
begun. 

" Do you know any William ? There seems to be 
some message from a William, as far as I can make 
out." 

Having had a favourite cousin of that name, I told 
her it might be quite correct, and I should be glad to 
receive any message that came. 

A few moments passed, and then Miss Vincent said, 
in a puzzled tone : 

"It is not from William — the message is to some 
William — I cannot understand it at all." She pushed 
the paper rather impatiently towards me. Written 
upon it clearly but faintly were these words : 

Dear William, — I want to explain to you how I 
came to fall out of that window — it was not my fault 
really — ^someone came up behind and pushed me 
out. Ethel. 

The signature was rather indistinct, but quite un- 
mistakable to me ; but then I knew the Christian 
name of Mr Stead's friend, and realised at once that 
she was taking this opportunity of sending a message 
to him. 

I asked Miss Vincent what name was written at the 
bottom of the paper. " It looks like Ethel," she said, 
"but it is not very clear. I will ask the spirit to write 
it again." A very bold and unmistakable signature 
was at once given. 

I concealed my excitement, and said quietly to Miss 
Vincent 5 



A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND 231 

" I think I know from whom the message comes 
and for whom it is intended, but to make quite sure 
it would be very satisfactory if the spirit could give 
through you a sign agreed upon by the sender and the 
recipient and unknown to everyone else." 

" Well, I will try," said Miss Vincent at once. She 
had scarcely touched the pencil when it began describ- 
ing a circle. " There is no doubt about my having to 
make a circle," she said, laughing. " Oh, now I am to 
put a cross into it," she added. 

Within a few seconds both these were given, and to 
our great delight — as well as to his — the sign was re- 
cognised by Mr Stead as being the one agreed upon, 
and which had hopelessly puzzled all the other 
mediimis. 



CHAPTER XII 

1900-1901 

I MUST now note a curious episode connected with my 
friend Judge Forbes, whose astral influence I had 
traced clinging to the rooms he once occupied in 
Cambridge. 

As before mentioned, he had married, and I had 
lost sight of him and his whole family for many years. 
But we had several mutual friends, through whom I 
had heard of the birth of his only son and only child, 
and later of the boy being sent to Eton, and eventually 
entering the army. 

This was very shortly before the breaking out of the 
South African War, and the young feUow was one of 
many who were drafted from India, after a few months' 
service there, to help to defend their Queen's pos- 
sessions and their countrymen's lives and property 
in South Africa. 

Later, young Forbes was shut up in Ladysmith, and 
one cold, dismal day in January (6th January 1900) 
I was lying very ill in bed with a severe bronchial 
attack in the house of my eldest brother in Hamp- 
shire, when the latter came home one evening from the 
Winchester Club and told us of the celebrated sortie 
and the death of three young English officers. The 
name of Forbes of the Royal Rifles figured amongst 

232 



1900-1901 233 

these, and I felt convinced that it must be the only 
child of my old friend. 

Without hesitation I prepared to write a few short 
lines of sympathy with the heart-broken father. In 
vain my sister-in-law protested against my concluding 
at once that it must be the judge's son, since other 
members of the family of the same name were known 
to be in the army. I had not a moment's doubt that 
this was the boy already mentioned, and even a 
silence of over twenty years seemed to present no 
difficulty in expressing one's deep sympathy, in the 
face of such a sorrow. 

The real drawback lay in my weak state of health 
and physical inability to write more than a few lines. 
But in these I expressed a hope that in time my pool 
friend might come to realise that his boy was " as 
much alive and as near to him as ever — perhaps 
nearer." 

It will indicate how entirely all relations between 
us had been broken off for many years, when I say that 
I did not even know the judge's private address, and 
was forced to send my letter to his court. In a day or 
two i received a very touching and grateful answer, 
pathetic not only in its grief, but even more in his 
frankly avowed inability to derive any consolation 
from the thoughts that my short note had suggested. 
Resignation to the inscrutable will of God was 
the keynote of the letter. In some far-distant 
future he might be permitted once more to 
see his beloved son, but meanwhile all was gloom 
and misery. 

The episode was over. I had expressed my sincere 
sympathy with an overwhelming sorrow, I had re- 



234 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

ceived a most kind and appreciative answer — ^no more 
could be done in the matter. 

This was my conclusion, but evidently not the con- 
clusion of young Talbot Forbes. I had never seen this 
boy in my life, nor his mother ; but I suppose my old 
friendship with his father, and my deep sympathy 
with the latter, enabled the son to approach me 
soon after he had passed into the next sphere. 

Anyway, he made me conscious of his presence by 
my bedside during the greater part of the night 
following my receipt of his father's letter. 

Owing to my severe illness I was sleeping very 
little, and once or twice in the night an attendant 
came in to make up my fire and keep the temperature 
of the room even, so that I had ample opportunity 
for realising the presence of my hitherto unknown 
visitor. 

Those who know what " hearing with the inner 
ear " means will realise the method through which 
the following conversation took place, so far as I can 
now recall it : — 

TALBOT. — " Yes, it is Talbot Forbes. I want to 
speak to you. Please listen to me I I want to tell you, 
you must do more for them than this — you have to help 
them about m^." 

E. K. B.— " Who do you mean by ' them ' ? " 

TALBOT. — " My parents, of course. DonH you 
understand what I am saying ? You have to do more 
for them — you must make them know I am close to 
them.'''' 

Now I could only suppose that he wished me to 
write again to his father, and explain more fully my 
own ideas on the subject of our departed friends. As 



1900-1901 235 

this would have involved a wearisome and almost 
certainly useless discussion on a topic which I had 
reason to know was very distasteful to the boy's 
father, I said rather shortly, and I am afraid with 
some of the petulance of an invalid : 

" Oh, do be quiet, and leave me alone ! I have done 
all I can, and there is no more to be said about it. I 
am very sorry for you, but I really can't help you in 
this. I don't know your mother or what her views 
about it may be ; and as for your father — well, I am 
not going to worry and torment him about ideas that 
he dishkes and disapproves of, and just now, too, when 
he is so miserable ! No, I w^on't do it, not even if you 
come and worry me about it every night." 

I was feeling ill and weary, and longing for sleep, 
and hoped this would be a quietus to my young 
friend. Not a bit of it ! His next remark was : 

" What does it matter what you think or what you 
mean to do or not to do ? You have to help them, not 
to think about your own feelings.^'' 

This was frank at anyrate, but not altogether 
convincing. Soon afterwards, tired out with the dis- 
cussion, I really did fall asleep, and only woke a short 
time before my breakfast and daily budget of letters 
arrived. Amongst these letters was one in an un- 
known handwriting, which proved to be from Mrs 
Forbes, saying she had seen my letter to her husband, 
and begging that I would tell her the grounds I had for 
my assurance that those we love are close to us after 
the great change we call death. 

Evidently the boy knew that this letter was coming 
to me, and was trying to prepare me to answer it in 
such a way as should help him to convince his mother 



236 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

of his continued existence in her immediate pres- 
ence. 

As this case is one well known to the Society for 
Psychical Research (the lady I have called Mrs Forbes 
appearing on their records both as Mrs Scott andunder 
the pseudonym I have borrowed from them), it is un- 
necessary to go into further details. Suffice it to say 
that my nocturnal visitor was successful in his aim. 

I answered his mother's letter as he wished. This 
led to a long correspondence between us, and to my 
making her acquaintance shortly afterwards and re- 
newing my old friendship with her husband. 

Mrs Forbes had several sittings with Mrs Thompson 
and other mediums, became convinced of her son's 
presence with her, and very soon was independent 
of outside assistance in communicating with him. 
The judge also declared himself " unable to resist the 
evidence," but I don't think he ever quite honestly 
rejoiced in his convictions. It is hard to eradicate 
prejudices and traditions after fifty years of age, and 
the human element in his son's bright and happy 
messages always seemed to worry and perplex him a 
little. 

He knows all about it now ! Much as I deplore 
the earthly disappearance of such an old and faithful 
friend of my youth, I can sincerely rejoice in thinking 
of him as once more united with his son, in ways that 
will no longer appear to him unnatural or undesirable. 

During the judge's lifetime, and after the son's 
death, I often stayed with him and his wife in their 
northern home. Mrs Forbes used frequently to say : 
*' It was Talbot who brought us all three together, we 
must remember ! " 



iQOO-igoi 237 

PEKIN STORY 

It was during my first visit to Judge and Mrs 
Forbes, in the north of England, that another curious 
experience Ccime to me. 

This happened on the 4th of July 1900, for I 
remember saying to Mrs Forbes next morning : 
' ' I shall remember the date from its being American 
Independence Day." 

It was the year of the Boxer rebellion in China, 
when the Pekin Embassy was in a state of siege, and 
by July almost all hope that any Europeans would be 
saved from their dire peril had faded away. 

The Memorial Service, arranged by a too eager 
dignitary of the Church to take place in St Paul's, had 
certainly been adjourned at the last moment ; but as 
days and weeks passed, and the little garrison was 
still unrelieved, very little hope was entertained. In 
fact, by July most people hoped and believed that 
their troubles must be already over, through the 
merciful interposition of death. 

A connection of mine, whom I had known well when 
she was a child, but had not seen for many years, 
was shut up with her husband, children, and sister in 
the Pekin Embassy at the time. Thousands were 
lamenting her sad fate, and I naturally amongst them; 
but I wish to make clear that, owing to the years that 
had elapsed since I had seen this special member of 
the family, it was not in any sense a very personal 
sorrow, nor was I then — nor am I now — aware of any 
special tie of affinity between this lady and myself. 

I had gone to bed about eleven o'clock on the night 
of 4th July 1900, and had been in bed about half-an- 



238 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

hour, without any attempt at going to sleep, when 
suddenly I felt extremely alert in mind, very much 
as Miss Porter described herself in the Captain Carbury 
episode. Almost immediately upon this feeling of 
mental alertness came the conviction that Mabel 
M'Leod (as I will call her) was in the room, close to 
me, and that she was in some dire and urgent need 
of help — instantaneous help, I mean. I could neither 
see nor hear on this occasion — I only knew these facts 
through some power of intuition, all the more re- 
markable because, having made up my mind that all 
was over at the Embassy, I had not been thinking of 
her or of her fellow-sufferers for some days past. 

My thoughts were fully engaged at the time with 
the grief of my host and hostess. 

With the knowledge of Mabel's presence came also 
the conviction that she was still alive — in the physical 
body — and that it was no excarnate spirit that was 
appealing to me for help. 

The impression was so vivid that I called out in- 
'stinctively : " What is it, Mabel ? What can I do 
for you ? " There was no response, either by outward 
or inner voice, only the insistent appeal for help, and 
knowledge of some imminent danger at hand for her. 
I am trying to explain that something more than 
the usual hourly peril in which they must be living, 
if on this side the veil, was implied by the impression 
I received. It was some acute and additional danger 
which threatened her at the moment. Feeling it was 
useless to waste time trying to find out by writing 
or other means what the exact nature of this danger 
might be, I jumped out of bed as quickly as possible, 
saying : " Never mind trying to make me understand 



1900-1901 239 

— I will pray for you, whatever it is ! " So I knelt 
down, and prayed most earnestly that this poor 
woman, whose spirit had appealed for help at some 
dread crisis, might be comforted, and delivered from 
any dangers threatening her at the time. 

I had been very comfortably tucked up in bed, 
looking forward to the pleasant drowsiness which 
promises sleep, and I am quite sure I should not have 
put myself to all this inconvenience without a very 
strong motive. 

When I felt the poor, tormented spirit was calmed 
and soothed by the atmosphere of prayer, I returned 
to my bed, and eventually fell asleep. 

Next morning I told Mrs Forbes of my experience, 
making the remark quoted about the date. 

The following week she and I were together at one 
of the meetings of the Society for Psychical Research, 
at the close of which, in shaking hands with Mr 
Frederic Myers, I begged him to make a note of my 
experience and the date. 

"Ah, Miss Bates ! " he said, taking out a small note- 
book, '' I will make a note of it, but I fear there is not 
the remotest chance of any of them having been alive 
ten days ago." 

"Then my experience goes for nothing," I answered. 
*' It was a living woman, not an excamate one, who 
came to my bedside on the 4th July." 

Later, when the Embassy was relieved, and this 
lady (who had presented such a " stiff upper lip " 
to Fortune) was once more safe at home for a much- 
needed rest, I found that she had gone through a 
special time of accentuated suffering just when I 
felt her presence in my room. Her husband was 



240 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

down with dysentery, and she had not enough food 
either for him or for her poor Httle children, and the 
strain was almost too great, even for that brave soul. 

Of course, she had been quite unconscious of any 
appeal to me. 

But she has Scottish as well as Irish blood in her 
veins, and this heredity may have enabled her sub- 
conscious self to sense my locality and to realise my 
power and will to help her in her desperate need. 

Truly it was a case of " vain is the help of man," 
or woman either ! But we know too little of spiritual 
laws to be able to deny off-hand the efhcacy of any 
earnest prayer. 

I saw Mr Myers make a note of the circumstance, 
but, unfortunately, this cannot be found amongst his 
papers. I asked Mrs Myers about it, and she re- 
membered distinctly her husband having mentioned 
the case to her when he returned home after that 
meeting, but when I last saw her, she had hunted 
amongst his papers in vain for the note which he 
made at the time. 

Early in January 1901, the day after Lord Robert's 
triumphant procession through London, I went to 
spend some weeks at an " open-air cure " in Devon- 
shire, high up in the hills, and in a bleak part of the 
county. Several severe illnesses had left me so 
supersensitive to colds and draughts that it seemed 
a vital necessity to take some such drastic step, even 
at this inclement time of the year, unless I were pre- 
pared to sink into a state of chronic invalidism, and 
become a burden to myself and my neighbours for the 
rest of my natural life. 



1900-1901 241 

An old friend was " second in command " in this 
special establishment, which she had asked me to 
recommend, and a bright thought struck me that I 
might do my friend a good turn, and myself also, by 
spending a few weeks in the house. 

I did not bargain, however, for the deep snow 
which fell on the very day after my arrival, nor for 
the howling west winds which continued to blow 
during the w^hole of my stay. 

In these parts, the west wind corresponds with our 
eastern variety, and is quite as cold and disagreeable. 

Nor were the surroundings inside of a very cheerful 
nature. All the other patients (six or seven) were 
quite young girls, and all more or less consumptive. 
Several of them were very attractive, which made it 
seem all the more sad. Without exception, all were, 
or had been, engaged to be married, as the coping-stone 
to this tragedy of their lives ! In several cases the 
engagements had been broken off, sometimes by 
mutual consent, on the score of health. In a few 
exceptions, where love had proved stronger than 
prudence and common-sense, it was equally melan- 
choly to realise that the future could hold nothing 
but disappointment on the one side, and a hopeless 
regret on the other. 

Under these circumstances it was perhaps only to be 
expected that my first impressions of the establish- 
ment should not be entirely couleur de rose. Yet the 
house itself was pleasant enough, and the view from 
the drawing-room windows was simply magnificent, 
including sea as well as moor. 

Curtainless windows, with sashes thrown wide open, 
and chilly linoleum to replace warm carpets, were 



242 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

rather a trial to the uninitiated, early in January, 
with deep snow on the ground and fires none too 
plentiful. In addition to these drawbacks I had 
another personal one. Coming in the middle of the 
winter, it was naturally Hobson's choice as regarded 
the bedrooms. All the best and warmest aspects 
had been appropriated in the autumn, and an ugly 
little room, with cold, west outlook and depressing, 
mustard-coloured distempered walls, fell to my lot. 

Yet even these facts did not sufficiently account 
for the extremely depressing effect of that room upon 
me. 

" Has anyone died here lately ? " was my first and 
natural query in a house of this kind. 

I had heard the girls casually mention two gentle- 
men patients who had been in the house the previous 
year — one of these had gone into rooms in a neigh- 
bouring town with his nurse . I did not hear what had 
become of the other one, and had not sufficient 
curiosity to ask the question. 

My friend reassured me by saying she was sure no 
one had died recently in my room. She had only 
lately come to the house herself, as I knew ; having 
been matron for some years of a small hospital in the 
country. 

" The second poor gentleman, who was a patient 
here, did die in the house, I believe, but that was 
months ago," she said, " and I understand that he 
had Laura Pearce's room," mentioning one of the 
girls, who had a specially cheerful apartment. It 
seemed quite natural that a sick man, confined to his 
bed, should occupy a large and sunny room, so I 
thought no more of the matter. Still, I was always 



1 900- 1 90 1 243 

conscious of an unpleasant and sad atmosphere in my 
own room, and took occasion one day to ask the lady 
at the head of the establishment whether she knew 
anything of the predecessors in the house. 

It struck me that the psychic atmosphere in my 
room might be connected with some of them. 

Miss Hunter replied laughingly : "I can't tell you 
anything about them, for the very good reason that 
they don't exist. / am the first tenant of this house. 
It was only built two years ago, and remained vacant 
for the first twelve months." 

Then I told her very cautiously of my feeling about 
my room, and that I had supposed it might have to 
do with someone who had slept there before she took 
the house. 

Two or three of the young girls were in the room at 
the time, and it struck me that one of them — the one 
who was there for her second winter — looked a little 
surprised and interested ; but the matron passed off 
the subject with a few bantering words, and again I 
had no suspicion of the truth. 

Six weeks passed, and my last night in the house 
had arrived. My nurse friend was in the habit of 
giving me massage twice a day, before getting up in 
the morning and the last thing at night. She left 
me on this occasion about ten-thirty p.m., express- 
ing a hope that I should soon sleep, and have a good 
night before my long journey next day. 

" Not much doubt of that," I murmured. " Why, 
I'm half asleep already ! " And I turned round, tired 
and yet soothed by the massage, and soon fell into a 
deep and dreamless sleep. 

Several hours must have passed, when I woke up. 



244 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

trembling and terror-struck, after passing through 
an experience which seems as vivid to me to-day as on 
that February night or early morning. My heart was 
beating, my limbs trembling, beads of perspiration 
covered my face, as I discovered later. 

No wonder ! I had been through an experience 
from which few, I imagine, return to tell the tale. 
For I had passed through every detail of dying, and 
dying a very hard and difficult death. 

Body and soul were being literally torn apart, in 
spite of the desperate effort to cling together, and my 
spirit seemed to be launched into unknown depths 
of darkness and possible horror. It was the feeling 
that / did not know where I was going nor what awaited 
me that seemed so terrible — this and the horrible 
fight for mastery between my poor body and soul 
and some unknown force that was inexorably set 
upon dividing them. 

This, so far as I can express it, exactly describes 
the experience I had just gone through, and from 
which I had awakened in such abject terror. 

As the beating of my heart subsided, and I could 
think more calmly, I remembered with startling 
distinctness that in the very worst of the struggle I 
had been vainly endeavouring to say that text in the 
twenty-third Psalm which begins : 

" Though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death, I will fear no evil ; for Thou art with me : 
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.'''' I could say 
the first part of it quite easily, but some fiendish 
enemy seemed bent upon preventing my saying the 
last sentence, and in my terrible dream, rescue and 
safety depended upon my getting to the end of the 



1900-1901 245 

text. I tried again and again, always to be driven 
back in despair before the crucial words were uttered. 
At last, with a desperate effort, I seemed to shake off 
the incubus which was weighing me down, and I 
finished the words triumphantly, and so loud that I had 
positively wakened myself up hy shouting them otU. 
With returning memory I knew this had happened, 
and hearing a door open and shut on the half landing 
below my room, I thought for the moment that some- 
one must have heard me, and must be coming to see 
what was the matter. I looked at my watch — just 
two-thirty a.m. No one appeared ; and to my relief 
I remembered that this was just the hour when either 
Miss Hunter or my friend went round to the invalids, 
giving them milk or bovril, in the night. 

I had no inclination to seek out either of these 
ladies. The horror was past, and no one could undo 
what I had endured ; so I lay quiet, and in course of 
time managed to go to sleep again, not waking until 
the servant came into my room to light the fire at 
seven-thirty a.m. 

It happened to be a certain Minnie on this occasion, 
a very respectable young woman, who had accom- 
panied Miss Hunter when she gave up the matron- 
ship of a well-known hospital, and who had therefore 
been with her since this establishment had been 
started. 

My night's experience convinced me so absolutely 
that, in spite of all that had been said, the gentleman 
patient had died in this room, and that I had just gone 
through his death agonies, that instead of asking an^^ 
question about it, I said very quietly to Minnie, as she 
was on her knees lighting my fire : " The poor gentle- 



246 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

man who died here last summer died in this room, I 
find:' 

" Yes, ma'am," she said quietly, not knowing, as it 
turned out, that any mystery had been made about 
the fact. 

My personal friend was guiltless of any deceit, for 
she had been told the story about Laura Pearce's 
room, but the young girls confessed when I went 
down to breakfast that they had been specially 
warned not to let me know the true facts. 

Miss Hunter did not appear at breakfast, as she 
was suffering from a chill, so I went to her bedroom 
to say good-bye before going up to London. 

Feeling naturally annoyed and rather shaken by 
my night's experience, I said to her rather drily : 

" You need not have taken the trouble to deceive 
me about my room, Miss Hunter, nor to warn the 
girls to do the same. I know that gentleman died 
there, for I have just gone through his experiences." 
And then I told her about my terrible night. 

Although forced to admit the facts, Miss Hunter 
fought every inch of the ground, so far as the painful 
experiences were concerned. 

" Such an excellent man ! so interested in every- 
thing — a clergyman, my dear Miss Bates, and so 
good ! How could there be anything painful con- 
nected with his death ? " etc. etc. 

I suggested that, as Christians, we had the most 
overwhelming proof that holiness of life does not 
always preclude even mental suffering at death ; but 
she would not hear of this argument, and doubtless 
considered it blasphemous. 

By dint of questioning, however, I made two dis- 



1900-1901 247 

coverics — first, that the death was quite unex- 
pected. The man had only been a fortnight in the 
house, and when I expressed surprise that he should 
have been moved there so late in a fatal illness, she 
said unguardedly : 

" Oh, hut he was very slightly ill when he came — it was 
more a preventive measure. None of us had any idea 
that he was a dying man, the symptoms developed so 
suddenly.^' 

I also elicited another fact — i.e. that this delight- 
fully interesting personality " so intellectual — so full 
of interest in everything " (to quote Miss Hunter's 
words), had died at the age of forty, in the very prime 
of life. No wonder, under the circumstances of so 
short an illness, in the very zenith of life and enjoy- 
ment, that body and soul should have been loath to 
separate, and thus free the imprisoned spirit ! But 
Miss Hunter was adamant, and would admit nothing. 

Just before leaving her, it struck me that I had not 
yet told her about the text, so I repeated that episode, 
and then, for the first time, a startled look came into 
her eyes. She was taken by surprise, and said hastily : 
" That is extraordinary ! I was with him when he 
died in the night, and he kept on asking for that 
text. That is not so remarkable, many might have 
asked for that text, but I stopped once or twice after 
the first sentence, and he kept on urging me : " Say 
it to the end, Miss Hunter ! Say it to the end ! " 

Later the good lady even consented to write out 
the evidential points in this story, which I sent at 
once to my friend Dr Richard Hodgson. 

Immediately upon my return to London on this 
occasion, I was attacked quite suddenly by a very 



248 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

acute form of rheumatism, which laid me on my back 
— perfectly helpless — for several days. 

When the doctor arrived, his first question was : 
" Have you had any special shock lately ? This 
particular form of rheumatism does not generally 
come on with so little warning unless there has been a 
previous shock" 

I was about to deny this, thinking he referred to 
unexpected news, but with the memory of my Devon- 
shire experience so keen and clear, I felt bound to tell 
him that I had certainly had a shock to my nerves 
twenty-four hours previously. 

Soon after this sudden and sharp attack of illness I 
found myself in Portugal for the first time in my life. 

I had gone there with an English friend — Mrs 
Frampton — in order to be near connections who had 
lived in the country for many years. 

A cousin and I spent a delightful afternoon in 
that Cintra paradise of Monserrat, with General 
and Mrs Sartorius, who were living there at the 
time of my visit to Portugal. I have heard that 
even this charming house could tell strange tales if 
only walls could speak. It is easy to imagine that 
any spirits — carnate or discarnate — ^might deem it a 
privilege to haunt so exquisite a spot. Personally, 
I can only testify to the hospitality of our kind host 
and hostess and the excellence of the spirit of 
" Robur," which refreshed our weary bodies, and 
made the walk back to the Cintra Hotel, through the 
lovely woodland paths, a " thing of beauty and a 
joy for ever." 

To return to Lisbon. My friend Mrs Frampton 
had never been present at any sort of psychic 



1900-1901 249 

phenomena, so we planned a little sitting for her dur- 
ing one of these Lisbon evenings. 

She and I descended in solemn state to the fine 
library of our host, on the ground floor, whilst his 
wife and sister elected to remain in the drawing-room 
upstairs. A sister-in-law also begged to be excused 
from accompanying us, and spent the whole time 
occupied by our seance, in playing Moody and 
Sankey hymns, doubtless hoping thereby to exorcise 
the evil spirits whom we should presumably evoke. 

Unfortunately, she did not play loud enough to 
divert the attention of the Portuguese cook, who 
promptly gave warning next day, saying she could 
not stand these " devilish practices " ! We had failed 
to realise that the very wall, close to which our small 
table was placed, divided the kitchen from the large 
ground-floor library, so the poor woman doubtless 
sat with her ear well jammed up against this partition, 
and considered every rap of the table leg on the floor, 
a distinct footstep of the devil ! 

Nothing more terrible happened to us that evening 
than being forced to look up our English history once 
more, in "Hume " and " Green's Short History of the 
English People," both of which volumes were close 
at hand. For the whole seance might have been an 
" easy lesson in English history," with John, Duke 
of Northumberland, Lady Jane Grey, the Earl of 
Leicester, and the famous Elizabeth as its exponents. 
All these purported to be with us that evening, and I 
am bound to say that all dates and details mentioned, 
which our middle-aged memories could not verify at 
the moment, were in every case corroborated by 
reference to the library books later. 



250 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

It was just before leaving England for Portugal 
that I first met a lady (with whom I have since be- 
come more intimate), under rather exceptional cir- 
cumstances — these latter were unknown to me at the 
time. 

My brother, Colonel C. E. Bates, was living at 
this time (1901) in rooms in Cambridge Terrace, and 
the drawing-room floor was occupied by a Miss Isabel 
Smith, who was then only a name to us both. His 
landlady had given him to understand that this lady 
had connections in India, and was the niece of a 
General Propert, still on the active list, and an old 
friend of my brother's in Indian days. 

The last Sunday before starting for Lisbon I called 
in as usual to spend the afternoon in Cambridge 
Terrace, and found that the " drawmg-room lady " 
had just been paying him a visit, and had left him 
most enthusiastic. 

This visit surprised me, because my brother, being 
a very great invalid, had an inveterate dislike to meet- 
ing strangers, with whom he generally found it 
difficult to carry on any lengthy conversation. But 
this visitor had evidently been an exception. My 
brother expressed some regret that I should have 
missed seeing her, so to please him I suggested send- 
ing his valet upstairs with his compliments, and 
asK-ing if I might pay the lady a short visit, should 
she be disengaged. 

She came downstairs kindly, a second time, and we 
had a pleasant chat, whilst my brother and an old 
Indian brother officer carried on their conversation. 

I left England a few days later, and scarcely ex- 
pected to see or hear any more of Miss Isabel Smith. 



1900-1901 251 

Fate, however, ordained otherwise. Some weeks 
elapsed, and then I received a letter fom my brother, 
mentioning the curious circumstances that, he had just 
heard, had led to his making the acquaintance of this 
pleasant neighbour. "It is too long a story to 
write," he concluded, " but I will tell you all about 
it next time we meet." 

He did so, and as his account exactly tallies with 
the one Miss Isabel Smith (now Mrs Finch) has kindly 
written out for me for insertion in this volume, I will 
quote the latter from her own words. I must premise 
that Miss Smith turned out to be naturally clairvoy- 
ant and clair-audient, rather to the disgust of my 
brother, who considered himself superior to these 
" superstitions." Her narrative is interesting not 
only in itself, but because it is an object lesson in the 
curious " hits and misses " in psychic investigation. 
In this case a spirit confessed to an impersonation ; 
but it was an impersonation of the brother of a man 
whom my brother had really known in India — a fact 
entirely apart from any possible knowledge on the 
part of Miss Smith, who had never met my brother 
at the time of her adventure. I will now give Miss 
Smith's narrative. 

'* When at Grindelwald in the winter 1900-1901 
an excarnate entity came and spoke to me. He 
seemed much interested in the South African 
campaign ; told me he had been a soldier, first in the 
Rifle Brigade, then in the Indian army. When I 
asked his name he said he was Henry Arthur Chomley 
(the name of a celebrated ambassador was the one 
given), that he was a brother of Sir Frederic Chomley , 



252 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

and had been in the Rifle Brigade and in India, and 
had passed over two or three years before. 

When, shortly afterwards, I returned to Cambridge 
Terrace, he reaUsed the changed surroundings, and 
asked where I was. On learning I was in rooms he 
asked whether there was anyone else in the house, 
and on my telling him there was a paralysed military 
man downstairs named Bates, he exclaimed ' What ! 
Charlie Bates ? I knew him very well in India — 
do ask him if he remembers me ! ' 

I said I did not know the gentleman, but would 
certainly ask him if an opportunity should occur. 

A few days after this, a message was brought up to 
me from Colonel Bates, asking for my uncle, General 
Propert's, address in Burmah. This gave me the 
opening. I wrote giving the required information, 
and suggested that I might come and have a talk 
with him. 

In my next conversation with ' Colonel Chomley ' 
I told him all this, and he again said : ' Mind you ask 
him about me ! ' I answered : ' How can /, when I 
donH know what Colonel Bates'' ideas are on these 
subjects? He might look on me as a dangerous lunatic!"* 

Colonel Chomley remarked : ' / think you will find 
that he is interested in psychic matters."* 

I discovered that this was true, for on my first 
visit I saw a copy of the S.P.R. Proceedings lying 
on the table. 

I found him interested, but unable to get beyond 
the * subliminal consciousness ' theory. 

A few days later I asked Colonel Bates if he had 
ever met a Colonel Henry Arthur Chomley in India. 
He thought for a moment, then said : 



1900-1901 253 

' Chomley ? Why, of course I knew a Chomley, 
but I don't know his Christian name. He was 
Brigade Major at Meean Meer, and I took over the 
brigade from him, and bought his horses, etc. Where 
did you know him ? ' 

I then told him of the spirit who had given me the 
name of Henry Arthur Chomley, who said he had 
known him in India, and had over and over again 
begged to be remembered to him. 

The day following this conversation Colonel Bates 
sent me up his Army List, open, and marked at the 
name of Colonel Walter Chomley, and a note explain- 
ing that it was not Henry Arthur, but Walter Chomley 
whom he had known at Meean Meer. 

I then asked * Henry Arthur ' if his name was 
Walter or Henry Arthur. 

He said : ' Henry Arthur. Surely I ought to know 
my own name ! ' 

Colonel Bates told the story to you the next time 
you {i.e. E. K. Bates) came to see him, and I remem- 
ber we discussed it together when we met again. 

Shortly afterwards you wrote to tell me that you 
had looked up a Debrett for 1895, and had there found 
Colonel Henry Arthur Chomley, a brother of Sir 
Frederic Chomley, of the Rifle Brigade, etc., so that 
Henry Arthur Chomley was evidently alive in that 
year, and had been in the Rifle Brigade. 

I was much pleased to get this corroborative 
evidence, though the mistake in initials must have 
been Colonel Bates' error, and apologised to Colonel 
Henry Arthur Chomley in the Unseen. 

A few weeks later, however, you wrote again, and 
told me that you had been staying with a friend, who 



254 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

drove you over to call upon Colonel and Mrs Henry 
Arthur Chomley, that he was a brother of Sir 
Frederic Chomley, and was certainly alive, although 
not at home, at the time of your visit ! 

This information startled me, and my guide, at 
my request^ went to look up the soi-disant Colonel 
to find out what it all meant. 

The latter then confessed to having taken a friend's 
name, said a sudden impulse came over him when I 
first asked his name, and having told one lie, he 
felt bound to go on deceiving me, but that he had 
known both Colonel Bates and Colonel Henry Arthur 
Chomley in India, and that his own real name was 
Anstruther ! " 

This was Miss Smith's narrative. 

Now out of this curious jumble of true and false, 
two points remain clear : 

My brother had known a Chomley in India, and had 
succeeded him as Brigade Major at Meean Meer. This 
Chomley was a brother of Sir Frederic Chomley, the 
well-known diplomatist, but his name was Walter, 
not Henry Arthur. Yet Sir Frederic had a brother 
named Henry Arthur, and the impersonating 
Anstruther had borrowed the wrong brother's name 
when trying to pose as the friend of Colonel Charles 
Bates. To make confusion worse confounded, 
Walter Chomley was alive, as well as Henry Arthur, 
at the time of Miss Mabel Smith's experiences, 
for I have seen his death within the last eight 
months ! 

The second point is that, personally, my brother 
and I had reason to be grateful to the deceiving 



1900-1901 255 

Anstnither. He was certainly the means of introduc- 
ing a pleasant acquaintance to my brother and to me. 

Miss Mabel Smith's experience at Grindelwald 
reminds me of one of my own in the same place 
during the following year. 

I had gone there with a cousin, who was eager for 
skating and tobogganing, in January 1902, on my 
way to Rome. After a pleasant week at a charm- 
ingly quiet and comfortable hotel — the Alpenrilhe 
I think was the name — my cousin wished, for pur- 
poses of policy, to change over to a more famous, 
but noisy and overcrowded one. 

So on the evening of 3rd February we found our- 
selves in this immense caravanserai, having ex- 
changed our large, comfortable, steam-heated rooms 
for small, oblong apartments, each provided with 
three doors as well as the window, and a wood fire 
to be fed from small " five-franc baskets," and always 
going out at that ! 

There was deep snow on the ground and a heavy 
fog of snow falling when we made our change, so 
that one was not in the most brilliant spirits ; and be- 
ing suddenly thrust into the midst of a big, hetero- 
geneous company of strangers is never exhilarating. 

Our bedrooms, though small and not specially 
comfortable, were perfectly commonplace, the very 
last milieu with which one would have associated 
any interesting experience. The window of my room 
faced the door into the passage, my bed lay between 
the two ; right and left of it were two other doors, 
each communicating with other occupied rooms. 

Therefore I thought little the first night of noises 
and moving of furniture, taking for granted that 



256 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

these must be occurring either right or left of me, 
and that the clearness of the atmosphere accounted 
for my odd impression that a table and chair — be- 
tween my bed and the window — were being moved. 

The following night {4th February), however, this 
fact was indisputable. I had heard both my neigh- 
bours retire to bed by ten p.m., as so m.any do who 
have been skating and tobogganing all day long. I 
had sat up reading for half-an-hour beyond this, and 
went to bed at eleven, p.m., by which time there 
was perfect silence in the hotel, as no special enter- 
tainment was going on. 

Very shortly, this movement of the furniture began 
again, unmistakably in my room this time. Curiously 
enough, it did not frighten me at all nor suggest 
burglars (a far greater terror to me than ghosts !). 
I cannot at this distance of time remember why the 
idea of Mr Myers should have come to me in con- 
nection with these noises ; but I am quite certain 
that I did think of him at the time, and fully expected 
his name to be given, when I asked if anyone wished 
to speak to me and were trying to attract my at- 
tention by moving the furniture about. 

It was greatly to my surprise, therefore, that the 
name of Gifford was given. I may here note that 
this was the real name given to me. He said he was 
a judge, one who had lived fifty or sixty years pre- 
viously, that he had once unintentionally con- 
demned an innocent man to be hanged, and he was 
evidently still greatly perturbed about this, and 
begged for my prayers. 

All this put Mr Myers entirely out of my head — 
unfortunately, as events proved. 



1900-1901 257 

I had some further talk with Judge Gifford, but do 
not remember it in detail. 

Next morning I told my cousin of my experi- 
ence, and on the evening of the following day 
mentioned it in the presence of some neighbours at 
tabic (Vhote who had introduced psychic subjects 
to us. 

This gentleman and his wife were both impressed, 
and yet incredulous, and when my cousin laughingly 
declared that " Gifford had come to her the second 
night, but that she told him she was too tired out to 
listen to him," we all three supposed that she was 
turning the whole subject into ridicule. This would 
have been quite characteristic of her, although I have 
always thought she had some mediumistic faculty, 
and was one of the many people whom I should advise 
to leave these matters alone. I was the more con- 
vinced that she was merely " chafifing " on this 
occasion, because when I warned our acquaintances 
of her powers of exaggeration in " making fun " of 
things, she said nothing. 

But when we had returned to our rooms that night 
she remarked quite quietly : " But he did come, 
Emmie ! When you said that at table d^hote about 
my exaggerating things, I let it pass, because very 
often it is true. But what I said this evening was 
absolutely correct, though perhaps it is as well those 
people should not believe it. Someone did come to 
my bedside last night, and said : ' I am Gifford — 
will you listen to me ? ' And I said : ' No ; not to- 
night. I am too tired,' just as I told you." 

I think poor Gifford came again more than once to 
me ; but I had done all I could for him, and explained 



258 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

this, adding that he must now leave me alone, which 
he did. 

Later my cousin returned to Paris, and I went on to 
Rome, where I received a letter from Dr Richard 
Hodgson enclosing some Piper script. 

F. W. H. Myers communicating, said that he had 
come to me on the evening of 4th February, that I 
seemed to recognise him, and that he thought he had 
" got his message through to me," and hoped that 
I should write to Dr Hodgson to that effect. 

In answering Dr Hodgson's letter I denied the 
Myers' episode in toto, so far as my consciousness was 
concerned. In fact, the Gifford incident put all else 
so entirely out of my mind that I fear I did not even 
mention to Dr Hodgson that my iirst thought that 
night had been connected with Mr Myers. 

Anyway, the next letter from Boston enclosed an 
account of a sitting, where Mr Myers came and 
apologised for having misled Dr Hodgson about my 
recognition of him. 

His words were almost literally as follows : — 

" I am extremely sorry, my dear Hodgson, about 
that affair with Miss Bates. I should not have 
thought of mentioning it to you had I not felt con- 
vinced that she recognised me. Her astral body was 
quite aware of my presence, and I quite thought she 
had realised it on the physical plane " (the italics are 
mine). 

It would seem that the Myers' message was in the 
very act of transmission from my astral to my normal 
consciousness when this man Gifford must have come, 
switching off the telephone for Mr Myers, and getting 
on to it himself. Probably his great distress of mind 



1 900- 1 90 1 259 

would have made him the stronger force of the two 
for the time being. 

There must always be many disappointments of 
this kind in our research. There is always something 
which so nearly succeeds and then just fails at last. 
This must be the case where conditions are so fine and 
subtle and so easily disturbed, and where our own 
ignorance of many necessary factors is so profound. 
This makes it none the less disheartening at times ! 

Later I made an attempt with my friend Baroness 
Rosenkrantz of Rome to get a message through the 
other way — i.e. from Mr Myers and myself to Dr 
Hodgson, via Mrs Piper. 

The Baroness and I had a little " sitting " alone, 
wrote one or two short messages with a couple of 
extracts from Mr Myers' own writings, sealed up the 
envelope carefully, and I forwarded it to Dr Hodgson. 

But the test failed. Two years later Dr Hodgson 
spoke of the letter as being still intact. 



CHAPTER XIII 

A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA, I903 

My second visit to India took place in the early 
months of 1903, and I approached it this time from 
Burmah. Fielding Hall's " Soul of a People " had 
thrown its magic spell over me, and Miss Greenlow 
and I were both anxious also to see the far-famed 
Shwe Dagon Temple. 

I came to the conclusion from what I saw, and still 
more from what I heard, that Mr Fielding Hall must 
have appealed sometimes to his imagination for his 
facts, and allowed an exquisite poetical fancy to cast 
its glamour even over these. But the beautiful 
Golden Temple of Rangoon defies all powers of ex- 
aggeration. We went there again and again, and 
wandered amongst its endless small temples, repre- 
senting various forms of worship, including even a 
Chinese joss-house, which is stamped upon my 
memory through a disaster, which I have always 
connected with this special temple ; rank super- 
stition though it be. 

We had spent several weeks upon the Irrawaddy 
River ; had wandered through beautiful, dusty Man da- 
lay ; had explored Bhamo and marvelled over the 
exquisite visions of fairy-like beauty, painted anew 
for us morning and evening, on this most glorious 
river ; and had finally returned to Rangoon for a few 
days' rest before starting for Calcutta. 

260 



A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA, 1903 261 

It was an exquisite evening, just before our de- 
parture, when we went, towards sunset, to say fare- 
well to the Shwe Dagon. At that hour it is to be seen 
at its best, for the level rays of the Eastern sun, light 
up the golden cupola into startling and fairy-Uke 
magnificence. 

Having watched this glorious spectacle for some 
minutes, the air grew chilly, compared with the in- 
tense heat of the day, and darkness was coming on 
apace as we turned to retrace our steps. 

A few days before, we had noticed a Chinese joss- 
house, standing in one comer of the huge elevated 
platform upon which the Shwe Dagon rests. In the 
maze of buildings, and owing to the swiftly falling 
darkness, we could not at once locate this temple ; 
and most unfortunately for 7ne, with the stupid per- 
sistence which such a failure sometimes brings, both 
Miss Greenlow and I were determined to find it out 
before leaving the Golden Temple. At last a joyous 
exclamation warned me that my friend had been 
successful in her quest. 

The first time I had seen this joss-house I had run 
up the steps heedlessly, but felt such an impleasant 
influence on entering it that I came away at once, 
and only regret not having been equally prudent a 
second time. 

Miss Greenlow was gazing at some grotesque 
carvings in one corner of the temple, still dimly 
visible, and called out to me to come and look at 
them also. Very reluctantly I joined her, and stood 
for a few minutes waiting, till she was ready to 
leave. 

There was something so gloomy, so uncanny, and 



262 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

depressing — I must even say malignant — in the build- 
ing at this twihght hour, that I could stand the 
influence no longer, and as Miss Greenlow seemed 
inclined to linger, I hurried down the stone steps, 
saying : " / canH stay in that place / I will wait for 
you at the top of the marble stairs.^^ 

Now these steps, broken and dirty, and lined by 
small booths selling every imaginable toy and bit of 
tinsel, including small models of the various temples, 
led by steep flights up and down from the huge 
platform of ground I have mentioned. Some small 
link-boys were crowding round as Miss Greenlow re- 
joined me, clamouring to be allowed to light us down 
the steps — a very necessary precaution, for the dark- 
ness was quickly replacing the exquisite sunset 
colouring. 

I am, as a rule, rather a remarkably sure-footed 
person, and the lanterns of the boys threw ample 
light upon the steps, yet the first moment of my 
descent I was considerably surprised to find myself 
at the bottom of the first whole flight of hard marble 
steps ! I had no recollection of a slip even — one 
moment I was standing, carefully prepared to descend ; 
the next I was lying on my back at the bottom of a 
long flight of steps, with the link-boys gaping in 
astonishment. They could not have been more 
astonished than I was ! The very swiftness of the 
fall was probably my salvation ; otherwise I think 
my spine must have been injured. As it was, I was 
very much hurt, however ; the pain was intense for 
a time, and the muscles of my back were so swollen 
that they stood up in ridges as big as a good-sized 
finger, for some time after the escapade. In fact, it 



A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA, 1903 263 

was quite six weeks before all local trouble was over, 
and many more weeks before I had recovered from 
the unexpected shock. 

I have had several falls in my life, but never one 
other where there was absolutely no preliminary 
warning or sense of slipping, however swift. 

The experience was exactly that of being suddenly 
hurled down the steps by some outside force. I can 
only add that I deeply deplored my unguarded words 
to Miss Greenlow, when I told her I was sure there was 
some malignant spirit in the joss-house. 

Perhaps he wished politely to demonstrate the 
correctness of my remark. 

The short voyage from Rangoon to Calcutta was 
made pleasant by the kindness of a European friend 
in Rangoon, who came " to see us off," and asked if he 
should introduce to me a little Burmese lady, very 
rich and very devote, who was on board with us, going 
to Calcutta to pay a visit to her husband, who lived 
in that city. 

" She is one of our principal native residents," my 
Rangoon friend explained to me before introducing 
her. "She is also intensely interested in her Buddhist 
religion, and I think this may interest you, from what 
you have told me of your investigations." 

So the little lady was duly presented, and think- 
ing to open our conversation pleasantly, I remarked 
that Mr Rowell had told me that she was much in- 
terested in religious questions, and that although not 
a theosophist myself, I numbered several of them 
amongst my friends. 

But I found myself quite on the wrong tack. She 
screwed up her little mouth, as if tasting some nasty 



264 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

medicine, and then said in excellent colloquial 
English : 

" Oh, they are no good at all. They have muddled 
everything up, and got it all wrong. That is why we 
are beginning to write tracts and send out mission- 
aries. The great Buddha made no propaganda ; 
neither did we for many, many centuries. We believe 
that people must grow into this knowledge ; but now 
when you Western people come and take little bits 
of our system, and piece them together all wrong — 
well, then, we are forced to show you what is the truth ! 
It is like a puzzle map, and all you theosophists are 
trying to fit the pieces in, wrong side upward." And 
she finished with a merry and apologetic laugh, re- 
membering, no doubt, that I had spoken of having 
friends amongst these " stupid muddlers " ! 

She gave me quite a number of the " tracts " of 
which she had spoken, setting forth the true 
Buddhism, and mostly printed in Mandalay, and I 
made a point of passing these on to some of the 
friends I had mentioned to her. 

I can only trust they were appreciated, and 
efficacious in reducing the confusion resulting from 
trying to adapt Eastern mysticism to Western con- 
sumption ! 

Our conversation became still more interesting 
when I discovered that a mysterious fellow-passenger 
of ours on board the Devonshire, sailing from Mar- 
seilles to Rangoon, had taken this voyage at the ex- 
pense of the Burmese lady, and, I am sorry to say, 
had occasioned her a great and quite inexcusable d^- 
appointment. 

This man, whom I will call Dr Grone, was a pro- 



i 



A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA, 1903 265 

lessor at a celebrated university in the south of 
Europe, and was certainly a scholar — if not a gentle- 
man ! 

He had studied the Buddhist writings very deeply, 
and his name had been conveyed to this Burmese 
lady as that of one eager to throw off all ties of kin- 
ship, and retire — like the great Buddha himself — 
from the world, and find repose and enlightenment in 
a Burmese monastery. The only thing lacking in 
carrying out this excellent resolve was — as usual — 
money. 

The native lady, delighted to hear of so learned a 
gentleman, and one holding such an honourable 
position in Europe, being converted to the tenets of 
her religion, and thus wishing to give the best ex- 
ample of their influence upon him, agreed joyfully 
to forward the funds for his journey and to make ar- 
rangements for his stay in Rangoon before proceed- 
ing to Mandalay, where he was to be received as a 
Buddhist priest after a certain course of initiation. 

We had all remarked Dr Grone on board — partly 
because he was so thin and tall, and walked the deck 
so persistently in fine weather or foul ; partly be- 
cause he owned an exceptionally fine and long beard, 
which parted and waved in the breeze as he passed 
to and fro in his lonely perambulations. I never 
saw him speak to anyone on board except my own 
table companion, Dr Gall, the Secretary of the Church 
Missionary Society, and a very interesting and in- 
telligent man. This latter was also a distinguished 
Arabic scholar, and had lent me some striking mono- 
graphs he had written on the Mohammedan faith, 
striking both by the scholarship and breadth of view 



266 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

and tolerance, which one does not generally associate 
with the Society that he represented. 

I had seen him more than once in the company of 
Dr Grone, and when we reached Colombo, and read in 
the papers handed to us on broad that our ship con- 
tained the famous European professor who was 
journeying to Mandalay to become a Buddhist priest, 
after a touching farewell with wife and children, Dr 
Gall expressed both astonishment and incredulity. 

" He never said a word about it to me," was his 
remark. " I know he has studied the Buddhist 
religion very deeply, and he is anxious to get access to 
some MSS., which he hopes to find in Burmah ; but 
that is not the same thing as becoming a priest. I 
expect the papers have exaggerated the facts." 

As a matter of fact, Dr Grone certainly gave a 
lecture on Buddhism in Colombo on the day of our 
arrival, for one of our fellow-passengers had the 
curiosity to be present, but he, also, told me nothing 
had been said about the lecturer becoming a 
priest. 

The matter did not specially interest me ; but on 
arrival at Rangoon, the only decent (?) hotel was 
crowded, and most of us had to put up with a very 
inferior class of accommodation. 

A few hours of this establishment sufficed for most 
of the passengers, who promptly went up country or 
on the river ; but Miss Greenlow and I were obliged 
to spend three or four days in Rangoon, and Dr Grone 
was at first our only companion. 

So, of course, we spoke to each other in self-defence. 
He talked of his home life and university work, and 
casually mentioned the death of his wife, five years 



A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA, 1903 267 

previously, and the children who were awaiting him 
at home. 

This certainly tallied more with Dr Gall's ideas than 
the sensational Colombo newspaper account of his 
wife and children, to whom, like the great Buddha, he 
had bidden an eternal farewell ! Naturally one did 
not touch upon this delicate subject, but I asked 
him how long he expected to remain in Rangoon. 
To my surprise, he said at once that his stay was quite 
uncertain — he might even be returning by the Devon- 
shire, which was to sail within a week of her arrival. 

It seemed a long and expensive journey to take 
for so short a stay ; but doubtless he had business 
reasons, and the matter dropped from my mind. 

When we returned, three or four weeks later, he 
was no longer in Rangoon apparently, and I did n ot 
expect to come upon his tracks again. 

The Burmese lady explained the Grone mystery 
with some bitterness, and no wonder ! 

Having come out free, upon the understanding with 
her, already mentioned, she had taken a room for him 
at the hotel, and hadbusied herself in buying blankets 
and a carpet and other small luxuries, to break the 
Mandalay monastery to him as gently as possible. 

When three days passed and he made no sign of 
moving on, she quietly intimated that it might be as 
well to begin the new life without delay, and said she 
had written to her brother, himself a priest in the 
monastery, to meet Dr Grone at Mandalay and pre- 
sent him to the authorities at the monastery. 

This must probably have been about the time that 
I asked him innocently how long he would be staying 
in Rangoon. 



268 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

His plan had doubtless been to go to Mandalay in 
a dilettante sort of fashion, and to live in the 
monastery for a time, with the hope of getting access 
to some valuable and little known MSS. ; but it did 
not suit his plans at all to be met at once by the 
brother of his benefactress, and kept under the eye 
of this priest, who knew exactly the circumstances 
under which he had been enabled to take the long 
journey from Marseilles. 

Being evidently a prudent man, he determined 
to seize the first opportunity for retreat from an im- 
possible situation. How he raised enough money 
for the return voyage is not known. My Burmese 
acquaintance thought he must have applied to one 
of the Consulates, and that his university position 
would doubtless ensure his raising a loan. 

Anyway, he shipped himself surreptitiously once 
more on board the Devonshire, and arranged that the 
letter, containing the usual excuse of a " sudden 
telegram from Marseilles announcing the unexpected 
death of a near relation," should not be handed to 
his benefactress until the anchor was safely weighed. 

It was not a pleasant story, and treachery is no less 
perfidious for having an intellectual motive. I felt 
glad that Dr Grone was not a fellow-countryman. 

Having disburdened herself on this one point of 
righteous indignation, our little Burmese lady became 
as bright and cheery as a child, wearing her collection 
of pretty native dresses, which could all have been 
packed easily into a fair-sized doll's trunk, with 
singular grace and charm. When the tender arrived 
to disembark us in Calcutta, her husband came with 
it, and was speedily introduced. 



A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA, 1903 269 

We had tea with them a few days later in their 
handsome Calcutta flat, and this gave me the op- 
portunity for a long and interesting talk with the 
husband, who proved to be a most intelligent and 
open-minded man. 

He spoke of Fielding Hall's delightful book with 
appreciation tinged by kindly amusement. 

" He has been many years in the country, but he 
still judges us as a foreigner." 

When I suggested that the judgment was at least 
very flattering to the Burmese, this Burmese gentle- 
man laughed, and said : 

*' Flattering ? Yes — but not always quite true. 
One must see from inside, not from outside, to be 
quite true in one's judgments ; and no foreigner can 
see from outside. It is a question of race and 
heredity, not of having spent twenty or thirty years, 
or even a lifetime, in a foreign land." 

I suggested that those who saw from inside only, 
might also lack some essential factor in forming an 
accurate judgment. 

He agreed heartily to this, adding : " Yes, indeed. 
The ideal critic must have lived neither too near nor 
too far — mentally as well as physically ; also he must 
have intuition. Now Mr Fielding Hall is an artist 
as well as a poet, but in judging my country he lets 
his intuition run riot sometimes, as well as his 
imagination." 

After reporting this conversation, it is unnecessary 
to add that my Burmese friend spoke English rather 
better than I did myself. 

We then talked about the position of woman in 
Burmah, and how much this had been extolled 



270 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

and held up as a object lesson to the rest of the 
world. 

If the position of woman is the true test of a 
nation's civilisation, as has been so often affirmed, 
then certainly Burmah must be in the van of the 
nations ! Yet this is scarcely borne out by facts. 

I put this point as politely as I could, and my mind 
was at once set at ease by the purely impersonal way 
in which he met my remark. 

" Of course, we are not in the van of the nations, 
and yet it is quite true that our women have an ex- 
ceptional position — quite a good enough one for an 
election cry for the Woman's Suffrage ! Ah, yes ! 
I have been in England," he added, with a merry 
twinkle in his little black eyes. " But you must 
realise that the unique position of woman with us is 
somewhat accidental. It is not the result of philo- 
sophical or moral conviction on the part of our men ; 
it has been the natural outcome of circumstances, 
and a question of expediency rather than of ethics. 
So it was not really a ' test paper ' for us at all ! 
Our frequent wars in the past have taken the men 
out of their homes, and the women, at such times, 
were left alone to cope with not only the domestic, 
but the agricultural problems. All business of this 
kind passed through their hands, and in time they 
developed the qualities of industry, good judgment 
and power of taking responsibility, necessary for 
success in such a life. Then when the husbands came 
back and found everything going on so well and with- 
out trouble to themselves, they were only too glad 
to fall in with the existing state of things. We 
Burmese are lazy fellows after all. We cian rise to a 



A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA, 1903 271 

big call, but if our women will look after our business 
for us, we are quite content to smoke our pipes in 
peace and look on — and, of course, the one w^ho makes 
the wheels go round is the one who really drives the 
coach. Believe me, there is more of expediency than 
nobility in the attitude of our men towards our 
women, and more of laziness than either, perhaps ! 
But Fielding Hall would call this blasphemy, I am 
afraid ! " 

And so, with a joking word, our interesting talk 
came to an end, leaving me with a sincere hope that 
I might some day meet again both the intelligent 
husband and the charming wife. 

I found the air at Simla quite marvellous for psychic 
possibilities, and this was certainly a great surprise 
to me ; nor was it only a question of altitude and a 
dry atmosphere. Missouri and the Dhera Doon are 
celebrated for the purity of air and climate generally, 
but the influences there were quite different. 

Even Peshawar, with its glorious crown of snow- 
capped mountains, brought no special psychic 
atmosphere to me ; nor the Khyber Pass, where I had 
thoroughly expected to be haunted by the horrors 
of the past ; nothing of the kind occurred. The 
beauty of the day when we visited this historic pass 
was only to be matched by its own extreme natural 
beauty ; but no haunting memories hung round it 
for me. 

Perhaps a night passed in those rocky defiles 
might have brought some weird experience, but no 
European would be allowed to woo adventure in this 
way, even with the laudable desire for advance in 
psychological phenomena ! But I stayed there 



272 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

quite long enough to prove — for the hundredth time 
— that an attitude of expectation acts with me as a 
deterrent rather than encouragement, where the 
Unseen is in question. 

I had heard so much of Simla Society and Simla 
Scandals, and so little of Simla Beauty and Loveli- 
ness ! — in Nature, I mean — ^not Human Nature. 

It is true we were there at the most exquisite time 
in the year, when the air was still fresh and keen, 
when the last snows and the first blooms of 
rhododendrons were greeting each other, when the 
long stretches of valley, brown and purple and 
emerald green, lay like soft velvet in the immense 
distances towards the horizon line. 

As I looked at all this, day after day, it seemed to 
me that Simla, without its crowds of social butter- 
flies, male and female, and the dust and the flies, and 
even the heat that they bring with them, was one 
of the most exquisitely beautiful spots that the 
Great Creator ever " thought out " in His mind. 
Nowhere have I seen such a velvety effect of rolling 
hill and soft mountain-side ; such gorgeous atmos- 
pheric visions ; such a carnival of beauty and colour. 

We must have seen Simla at the most ideal time 
in the year, or people must become hlase and blinded 
to its intoxicating beauty, thanks to tennis tourna- 
ments and Government House receptions and the 
whole stupid Social mill. 

Not even the beauties of Kashmir have dimmed 
the memory of Simla for me ; but I would not go 
there again, and in the season, for anything that 
could be offered to me. 

All beauty is sacred, and I guard jealously my 



A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA, 1903 273 

sacred memory of the place, known to so many 
merely as a byword for folly and flirtation. 

Some strange and curious experiences came to me 
there, both in automatic writing and other ways ; 
but these are of too private a nature for publication. 

And so, with the beauty of Simla and the romance 
of Kashmir as jewels in my memory, I must end my 
second visit to India. 

It is said that pleasant as well as painful ex- 
periences are apt to run in threes. I trust this may 
be the case. If so, it will mean that once again I 
shall tread upon Indian soil. 



CHAPTER XIV 

A FAMILY PORTRAIT AND PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 

In the very heart of Warwickshire there is a beautiful 
old " half timber " hall, approached by a noble 
avenue of elms. The hall has come down from 
father to son, in the direct line, for nearly six hundred 
years, as the dates upon the front of the house 
testify. 

The present Squire is not onty an old friend of 
my early youth, but is connected through marriage, 
and he and his wife and I have always been on very 
friendly terms. He is the usual type of fox-hunting 
squire and county magistrate, did good service 
during the South African War by raising a corps 
of Yeomanry from the estate, and going out with 
them to fight his country's battles, and, needless 
to say, he received a hearty ovation from his wife 
and his county when he returned to them in safety. 
He is devoted to his beautiful house and estate, 
and is the last man to entertain fancies or super- 
stitions in connection with either. 

It is necessary to give these few words of explana- 
tion before relating an " incident in my life " for 
which I have always found it difficult to account, 
except on the supposition that some germ of psychic 
sensitiveness may exist, even under a hunting 
squire's " pink coat and top-boots." 

I have known Greba Hall since I was a child, and 

274 



A Family Portrait & Psychic Photography 275 

all its quaint old family portraits, especially those 
in the fine oak-panelled hall, with the old-fashioned 
open fireplace and " dogs " of the fifteenth century. 
But there were so many of these pictures massed 
together that I have never distinguished one from 
the other, with the exception of the few immediate 
ancestors of my friend. 

Some years ago I was staying with a lady who 
lived about three miles from Greba, and we had 
driven over there to have tea with the Squire's wife, 
whom I will call Mrs Lyon. The friend I have 
mentioned had become interested in psychic matters 
since my acquaintance with her, and I had discovered 
that she possessed some psychometric capacity. 

In the interests of non-psychic readers, I may 
explain that psychometry is the science of learning 
to receive impressions and intuitions from the 
atmosphere surrounding any material object — a 
letter, a ring, a piece of pebble or shell, and so forth. 
We seem capable of impressing all material objects 
with our personality, and naturally this is especially 
the case in letters written and signed by us. 

The lady with whom I was then staying — Mrs 
Fitz Herbert — had tried receiving impressions from 
letters several times, at my suggestion, and always 
with more or less success. We had been speaking 
of this with Mrs Lyon, who was always very sym- 
pathetic, and she suggested giving one of her own 
letters to Mrs Fitz Herbert to be " psychometrised." 

The latter was sitting facing a door which led 
from the hall to an inner room, and over this door 
hung the half-length portrait of an old gentleman, 
whom I had never specially remarked before, as 



276 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

the picture was hung rather high, and there was 
nothing very characteristic about the face. 

Mrs Fitz Herbert glanced at the portrait once or 
twice as she held the letter, and began her remarks 
upon the writer ; but I had no reason to suppose 
that the glance was other than casual and accidental. 

She gave, however, a very remarkably accurate 
description (as it turned out) of Mrs Lyon's unknown 
friend, both as to his character and the special and 
rather unique conditions of his life. 

I was feeling naturally gratified that my " pupil " 
should have acquitted herself so well, when she 
suddenly uttered a little expression of pain and 
complained of severe headache. 

I knew that she suffered from these headaches 
at times, and was therefore not surprised by her 
asking leave to ring for the pony carriage at once, 
and we were soon on our way home. 

Mrs Fitz Herbert was driving the pony, and as 
we turned out of the long elm avenue she murmured 
in a tone of relief : 

" How thankful I am to have got away from that 
old man ! I knew he was telling me what to say 
about that letter, but afterwards he wanted to give 
me some message himself, and I could not understand 
it, and that is what made my head so bad." Then 
she explained, seeing my bewilderment, that she 
was referring to the old gentleman whose portrait 
hung over the door I have mentioned. 

I suggested that we had better try to find out 
what the old man wanted to say, and we arranged 
to do so that evening after dinner ; but as Mr Fitz 
Herbert (who had a very charming tenor voice) 



A Family Portrait & Psychic Photography 277 

elected to come in and sing to us, the old gentleman's 
communication had to be postponed until the 
morning. 

Mrs Fitz Herbert and I sat down in the drawing- 
room the next day, armed with pencils and paper, 
so soon as her domestic duties were over. She was 
most anxious that / should take the message, but 
this seemed to me absurd, considering that I had 
received no sort of impression about the picture and 
could not even recall the face. So she took up the 
pencil very unwillingly, and after some difficulty 
the name of Richard Lyon was given, with the in- 
formation that he had owned Greba, and had passed 
over to the next sphere about one hundred and 
thirty years previously. But when it came to trying 
to find out what he wanted to say, she professed 
herself quite unable to grasp it, and passed the pencil 
determinedly over to me. 

Much to my surprise (for I had seemed to have 
no link with the old man at all), he was able to write 
through my hand with great ease. 

He explained to me that he had been much de- 
voted to the property, had lived only to improve 
it in every possible way, and that through his con- 
centration of interest on this one subject his life 
had been a very limited one, and that now he could 
not get away from the remembrance of his earth 
life and his beloved Greba. 

" I suppose he is trying to explain that he is earth- 
bound," suggested Mrs Fitz Herbert. 

" Yes ; that is just the truth," was the eager 
response through my hand, *' and it is so sad to 
think that my own descendants are the ones to keep 



278 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

me imprisoned in this way. I am told that I could 
progress, as they call it here, and be much happier 
if I could only forget Greba, even for a time. And 
it worries me to see things done so differently and 
not to be able to do anything myself for the old place. 
There is no happiness for me here. Do ask them 
to set me free," he continued rather pathetically. 

" But they don't want to hold you down," I 
answered. " Tell me how they do it and what you 
wish them to do." 

The old man then explained the position very 
carefully and sensibly. He admitted that his own 
deep love for his old property and surroundings and 
his failure in life to develop any other very deep 
affection, was chiefly in fault, but he added, that 
his portrait being hung there, in the hall of his 
descendants, was also very unfortunate for him. 

" It drags me down — I don't know why — but I 
am sure I could get away more easily if they would 
not keep that picture in the old hall." 

A few more practical questions elicited the follow- 
ing instructions : — He said the picture might remain 
in the county, so long as it was not in any house 
owned by a Lyon (there were several members of 
the family in Warwickshire) ; or it might be sent to 
London or elsewhere, and kept by members of the 
Lyon family, so long as they were not in the direct 
descent, and did not live in his old county. 

We drove over to Greba that afternoon, and took 
the " message " with us, knowing there was no fear 
of encountering the gibes of my fox-hunting friend 
at three p.m. on any week day in the hunting season. 

Mrs Lyon was extremely interested ; she not only 



A Family Portrait & Psychic Photography 279 

endorsed the Richard Lyon and his dates, but told 
us that he had done an immense deal for the 
property, as her husband had often impressed upon 
her, and that at his death, about one hundred and 
thirty years before, he had lain in state for three days 
in the very hall where we had taken our tea, and 
where his picture now hung. This was great encourage- 
ment, so we put our heads together, wondering how 
the poor old man's entreaty might be complied with. 

Mrs Lyon remembered that several of the old 
portraits were shortly to be sent to a picture dealer 
in the neighbouring town (some ten miles away) to 
be cleaned, but this special picture was not in need 
of restoration, unfortunately. 

" Still, I could put it with the others, and let it 
go to Warwick, and then tell the man not to do any- 
thing with it — but what would Edward say ? Can 
you imagine his allowing the picture to be taken 
down upon this evidence ? " 

From an acquaintance with " Edward " extending 
over large tracts of years, I was forced to admit 
that even my robust imagination could not reach 
so far. " Skittles .-^ " or " Confounded cheek ! " would 
be his mildest reply to such a request, even from the 
friend of his youth ! I did not care to think how 
much further his indignation might carry him ! 

But I felt so strongly that something outside 
myself had inspired the message, with its accurate in- 
structions, that at last I prevailed upon Mrs Lyon to 
promise she would mention the matter to her husband, 
and thus leave the responsibility of refusal with him. 

She did so, and the refusal was all my fancy had 
painted — and more ! 



28o SEEN AND UNSEEN 

Several months passed, and the following spring 
I was once more in the neighbourhood, staying 
with my own relations this time, who were related 
also to the Squire and his wife. 

The first piece of news I received at dinner the 
night of my arrival was that the Greba Hall picture 
had been sent in to Warwick ! 

I could hardly believe my ears. My relatives 
could tell me nothing beyond the fact, and advised 
my paying an early visit to Greba Hall during the 
absence of the master. 

I did this, and Mrs Lyon told me all she knew 
about the matter, which was not very much. 

" After you were here last," she said, " I spoke 
to Edward as I promised, and, of course, he laughed 
the whole thing to scorn, and was very rude about 
our tomfoolery." 

" Yes, I know all about that," I answered hastily. 
"But what happened afterwards — after I left 
Warwickshire, I mean ? " 

" That was the queerest part of it all," she re- 
sumed. " A few days after you had gone away he 
stood under the picture one evening, coming in from 
hunting and waiting for tea in the hall, and said as 
he looked up at old Richard Lyon : 

" ' Do you suppose I should allow your picture to 
be taken down — you who did so much for my 
property ? Of course not ! ' " 

" This happened once or twice, at intervals. Then 
he said nothing, but I used to notice that he always 
looked up at the picture whenever he came into the 
hall or stood by the fireplace. At last, about three 
months ago, he turned round suddenly, and said ; 



A Family Portrait & Psychic Photography 281 

" ' When are you going to send those pictures to be 
cleaned ? ' Now you know I had been keeping the 
other pictures back, with a dim hope that Edward 
might relent. But I saw it was quite useless, so 
I told him they were going next day. To my intense 
surprise he said rather abruptly : ' Then send this 
picture with them, and don't ask me any questions.' " 

His wife took the hint, and waited for no second 
bidding. Off went the picture to the Warwick shop, 
and there it remained for nearly six months. 

When it came back eventually, the Squire was 
very triumphant on the subject, but I was equally 
triumphant in pointing out that nothing could 
alter the fact that the picture had been sent away, 
in spite of his earlier denunciations of our folly. 

Also 1 suggested that a good deal can happen 
in six months on either side of the veil, and that 
no doubt poor old Richard Lyon had had ample 
opportunity to " get free," as he called it, thanks 
to the unaccountable action of his descendant ! 

I have reserved this story for my last chapter for 
two reasons. It happened within the last few years, 
but I cannot remember the exact date, and dare not 
inquire from my irascible hunting friend ; and also 
it did not specially link on to any of the previous 
incidents described. 

I must now pass on to the autumn months of 1905, 
which found me in Eastbourne, where I have various 
kind friends. 

I had been going through a time of great anxiety, 
owing to family reasons, and went down to East- 
bourne with every prospect of finding rest and peace 



282 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

there. I arrived on the nth of November, and 
the first few days amply justified my hopes. 

Then a feeUng of the most intense depression came 
over me, quite unexpected and unaccountable. 
My family anxieties and responsibilities were happily 
over. I had been able to make a wise, and, as it 
turned out, most admirable choice, in finding a fresh 
attendant for an invalid brother, and there was 
nothing now to be done but to rest on my oars and 
be thankful that a most trying time — ^requiring 
infinite patience and tact — was over. 

When this unaccountable depression came on so 
suddenly, I put it down to reaction, and expected 
it to pass away with returning strength, after the 
heavy strain. But it increased as the weeks passed 
on into December, and did not lift until about eight 
A.M. on the morning of 22nd December. 

Then I had one of the most vivid experiences of 
my life. As suddenly as they had enveloped me 
some weeks before, so did the heavy clouds now roll 
off, leaving me with a sense of freedom and exaltation 
such as I have seldom experienced. This sense of 
freedom and joy and happiness was so marked that 
I mentioned it at once to an intimate friend, who 
came to see me that day after breakfast. I said to 
her : "I can only describe it as if one had suddenly 
been let out of prison or taken from a dark, dismal 
room into one with glorious sunshine streaming 
through the windows, where the very sense of being 
alive is sufficient joy ; in fact, I never felt so 
thoroughly alive before. And the curious thing is 
that there is no apparent reason for this — nothing 
is changed — I have not even had any specially 



A Family Portrait dc Psychic Photography 283 

pleasant letters. L f e is just the same on the outer ; 
but on the inner ? Well, I cannot describe it ! " 

" But can't you account for it at all ? " asked 
my friend, who had been with me through all the 
depressing influences of the former weeks and was 
astounded, as well as delighted, by the inexplicable 
change in my spirits. 

" Well, it is the day after the shortest day," I 
said, laughing. " But it has never had such an 
extraordinary effect upon me before." 

All day long this exuberant feeling of delight and 
happiness remained. I had no specially spiritual 
or religious experience in connection with it, but 
rather the happy feeling of confidence that a child 
might have, who, after wandering about in unknown 
lanes and thorny paths, suddenly found himself 
transported, with no effort of his own, to the dear, 
familiar house and loving home faces. 

Five days later, in a private letter, I read the 
first allusion to the death of Dr Richard Hodgson. 
It came to me in a letter from Mrs Forbes, not as 
a fact, but as an uncorroborated report, which would 
probably be found incorrect. 

" There is nothing about it in The Times this 
morning, so I donH suppose it is true.'''' These were 
her exact words. I don't think I ever really doubted 
the truth of it, although it came as a bolt out of the 
blue. 

Only a few days previously, a letter from an 
intimate friend of Dr Hodgson in America (he had 
brought us together) mentioned her having seen him 
lately and thinking he was really much depressed 
over his work and other matters, " though, doubtless, 



284 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

if I taxed him with this he wodld say it was quite 
untrue ; hut I feel quite convinced that it is true.'*'^ 

These words had not at the time given me any 
clue to my own curious depression, but when the 
first rumour of his death reached me, I felt convinced 
that it was true, and that I must have taken on 
his joyful conditions when he first found himself 
on the other side of the veil. I can only surmise, 
therefore, that the weeks of my depression may have 
corresponded with feelings alluded to by his intimate 
friend ; although less intuitive, if not less valued 
associates, may have noticed nothing but his usual 
cheery and genial spirits. 

A telegram sent to Mr Stead showed me clearly 
that my inquiry had been his first intimation of 
anything wrong. Then, in despair of getting 
accurate information, I wrote to Sir Oliver Lodge, 
who kindly responded at once, confirming my worst 
fears. He was good enough to send me later the 
particulars of the event, supplied by Professor 
William James. 

It was a bitter blow for us, but for him how 
joyous an awakening ! 

I am grateful for having had, through personal 
experience, even a dim reflection of that wonderful 
New Life, so overwhelming and so exuberant, that 
its rays could reach to the hearts of some of those 
who had been honoured by his friendship. 

On comparing notes I found that, allowing for 
difference of time, forty-eight hours must have 
elapsed between his physical departure and my 
experience of his awakening to new conditions. 

There may be various ways of accounting for this. 



A Family Portrait & Psychic Photography 285 

The spirit may not have been wholly freed at once 
from its physical envelope, but may have remained 
possibly, in some condition of unconsciousness, 
after the strangely sudden severance of the tie that 
binds body and soul together. 

Note. — Since the above Wcis written, I have re- 
ceived an explanation of the lapse of time between 
the passing of Doctor Hodgson, 20th December, and 
my experience of 22nd December 1905. 

On 6th February 1907 I had the privilege of a 
sitting with Miss MacCreadie, who not only gave an 
accurate description of Doctor Hodgson's personal 
appearance, and of his sudden call hence, but added 
that this spirit wished to explain to me that he had 
not been able to get entirely away from the body 
for quite two days after physical death, and that 
meanwhile he must have been in a state of trance. 
Miss MacCreadie did not know the name of the 
spirit whom she described so accurately, and whose 
message was thus conveyed to me. — E. K. B. 

Some time after Dr Hodgson left us, a friend in 
London wrote to me that she had either just read 
or heard that he had made some communication, to 
the effect that ''he was not very happy, as he had re- 
garded his work only from the intellectual point of view.""^ 

This seemed to me a most unlikely sort of message 
to come from such a man. 

In such cases there is nothing hke going to the 
fountain-head for information, and this came to 
me in the following words, which are, I think, 
characteristic and certainly sensible : — 



286 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

" My work was intellectual — ^how could I regard 
it from any other point of view ? That has nothing 
to do with the spiritual side of things. My spiritual 
life was very latent, it is true ; but it was sincere, 
so far as it went, and in this more favourable atmos- 
phere, the buds are unfolding, and I am learning 
more and more of the love and wisdom which I 
always dimly saw and appreciated. It is the attitude 
of mind which is all-important, and my attitude, 
though critical, was never obstructive, as you 
know." 

I should like to say a few words now on the subject 
of superstitions. We are all superstitious in various 
ways and upon different points — I may laugh at 
your superstition because it does not happen to 
appeal to me, but you may be quite sure you could 
find out my " Achilles Heel " if we lived together 
long enough. 

The only difference between people is, that some 
are honest about their superstitions and others — 
are not ! 

I met a lady not long ago at a foreign table d^hote 
who started our acquaintance by remarking that 
she was thankful to say she had not a single super- 
stition. Before we had spent ten days under the 
same roof I discovered that she believed in portents 
and lucky stones and the " whole bag of tricks," 
and possessed the power of seeing people in their 
astral bodies. 

This is to introduce my own strongest superstition, 
which is a horror of seeing the new moon for the first 
time through glass. Breaking glass is almost as 



A Family Portrait & Psychic Photography 287 

disastrous in my experience, even if the article 
itself only costs a few pence. 

Now I do not for one moment suggest that either 
one or other is the cause of my subsequent mis- 
fortunes. No one surely can be childish enough 
to suppose such a thing ; yet I have known sensible 
people labour this point in order to show me the 
folly of my ways — and thoughts. 

Again, I am quite aware that some people may 
break as much glass or china as the proverbial bull, 
and see the moon through the former medium every 
month of their lives, and not be a penny the worse for 
it — beyond the amount of their breakages. I only 
maintain that for nic these two things are in- 
variably the precursors of misfortune. 

When people say to me : " How can a sensible 
woman like yourself be so foolish as to think such 
things ? " I can only truthfully answer that I should be 
very much more foolish if so many years of my life had 
passed without my noticing the sequence of events. 

But to explain the phenomena is quite another 
matter. 

It seems to me quite reasonable that, allowing the 
possibility of influences coming to us from the other 
side, some sign — no matter how trivial — might be 
impressed upon us as a gentle warning to be prepared 
for disasters, more or less severe. 

Another curious thing is this : I have never found 
that avoiding seeing the moon through glass in any 
artificial way prevents disaster. I used to let kind 
friends, indulgent to my " folly," lead me bhndfold 
up to the window, carefully thrown open for my 
benefit. I can remember a most elaborate scene of 



288 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

precaution once, in an American railway carriage 
between Philadelphia and Boston, when a charming 
American lady, about to lecture on Woman's 
Suffrage, and grateful to me for some points I had 
given her with regard to the woman's question in 
New Zealand, insisted upon having a heavy window 
pulled up by a negro attendant, when she found out 
my little weakness. 

It was all of no avail. Left alone, I should most 
certainly have seen the moon through glass on that 
occasion, and I felt, even at the moment, that I had 
not really altered anything by falling in with the kind 
American lady's suggestion. 

In September 1906 I was going through a course 
of baths at Buxton, and on a certain Sunday (2nd 
September) I saw the moon through glass in my bed- 
room window in the most unmistakable way. There 
was no friendly cloud, no other twinkling light to throw 
the smallest shadow of doubt upon the fact. There 
was much good-humoured laughter over my " super- 
stition " in the house ; but I knew some trouble was 
on its way, little dreaming that it was one which 
would alter my whole life. 

On the Wednesday morning (5th September) I re- 
ceived the first intimation of what proved to be the 
last illness of a brother who has been mentioned in 
these pages already, and who had been an invalid for 
nearly thirty years. A point to be noticed is that on 
the Sunday, when the sign came to me, he was in his 
usual health, and even on Monday went out for a long 
drive. The first attack of angina pectoris only came 
on in the middle of the night of Monday-Tuesday, 
3rd to 4th September. 



A Family Portrait & Psychic Photography 289 

Later, when the disease had become acute, and I 
was in the south of England, living in hourly suspense, 
and receiving telegrams and letters several times a 
day, another curious incident occurred which has a 
bearing upon our subject. 

As my readers are probably aware, in this sad and 
painful illness the only proof of unselfish affection 
which one can give, may be to keep away from the 
patient, when you know that all is being done for 
him that skill and devotion can suggest. The 
smallest agitation is almost certain to bring on 
a fresh attack of the terrible pain, and so long 
as there is any hope of a rally, or, in fact, any 
consciousness that can possibly result in increased 
suffering, everyone should be kept away from the 
patient except those who are in actual and necessary 
attendance. 

This naturally entails great mental distress and 
suffering upon those who are living from hour to 
hour, in a state of tension and suspense. 

After more than a fortnight of alternate hopes and 
fears, the position became almost unendurable, and 
I was making all preparations for a visit to the patient, 
or at least to the house where he lay (against my 
better judgment), when letters and a telegram arrived 
imploring me not to come, as a short visit from an- 
other relative had proved most disastrous in bringing 
on another attack of the terrible pain ; from which 
he never really rallied. 

Under these distressing circumstances, there could 
be but one course open to me. 

I was staying with my kind friends Admiral and 
Mrs Usborne Moore at this sad time, and can never 



290 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

feel sufficiently grateful for their goodness to me and 
sympathy with my distress. 

The Admiral, as many of us know, is a most per- 
severing student of psychic science, and I think it was 
by his suggestion, or at anyrate with his approval, 
that I determined to pay a visit to a lady of whom 
he had spoken to me — Mrs Arnold, a daughter-in- 
law of Sir Edwin Arnold — who is a gifted clairvoyant. 

I went alone to the house, that she might not be 
able to connect me with my host and hostess ; and 
the interview was a remarkable one. 

There were many evidential points given, which, 
for family reasons, it is impossible to publish. She 
gave me the crystal ball to hold for a good five 
minutes, in order that it might become impregnated 
by my influence ; and then she took it from me, and 
began making a series of statements, without pausing 
for a moment or attempting to " fish," to use a 
technical term. 

These statements included my own life and studies 
and chief interests, and the number and sex of my 
immediate family ; also the attitude of the various 
members towards myself, and in each case the special 
statement was absolutely correct. 

Her first words were : " You are in great anxiety, 
I see. It is about the illness of an elderly man. Two 
people with whom you are in very intimate relations 
are ill, I see, but I will tell you now of the one you 
wish to hear about especially." 

She went on to describe not only my brother's 
surroundings and illness at the time, but also his 
permanent state of paralysis, adding that he was 
now in the country, for she saw green trees all round 



A Family Portrait & Psychic Photography 291 

him and waving grass. As my brother's Hfe for 
many years had been spent entirely between London 
and the seaside, this was a good bit of evidence. As 
a matter of fact, he was spending a few weeks in a 
country cottage for the first time in his hfe. 

The single point where she failed was as to the 
time of his passing away. She saw at once that the 
illness was one from which he could not permanently 
recover, and gave the approximate time very tenta- 
tively. " We cannot see times exactly — they come 
only in symbols. For instance, I see now falling 
leaves ; it looks like an autumn scene, and so I infer 
that means later on — perhaps October or November." 

This, as I have said, was the only mistake in the 
whole interview. My brother passed to the Higher 
Life on 24th September. 

When I saw his valet in town later, I asked him 
about the trees, and he explained that owing to the 
great heat, the leaves were all over the ground, and 
gave an autumnal look to everything. 

Most of us noticed the same appearance in London 
and elsewhere, even quite early in September 1906. 

The second friend lying dangerously ill was a puzzle 
to me at the time ; but within five days of my 
brother's transition, I heard of the death of Judge 
Forbes, who was one of my most intimate friends, 
as Mrs Arnold had truly observed. His illness was a 
very short one ; but on comparing notes with members 
of his family I found that he had taken to his bed 
three days before my visit to Mrs Arnold, and was 
already very seriously ill, although I had no know- 
ledge of the fact for more than a week after my inter- 
view with her. 



292 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

Before closing these personal records I must say a 
few words on the much vexed question of psychic 
photographs. 

As my friend Admiral Usbome Moore observes 
in a letter received from him as I write these words : 
" We are dealing with a great mystery here." He 
is himself one of those who by persevering effort is 
helping us to solve the mystery. 

It is certainly the branch of psychic science which 
promises the best results from an evidential point of 
view, but it must be a case of " each man his own 
photographer." 

There is always a tendency in human nature to 
be over-credulous as to our own achievements, and 
over-sceptical as to those of our neighbours. 

So for many years probably, we shall only accept our 
"very own" psychic photographs as quite genuine; 
but when a sufficient number of people are convinced 
by their personal experiences in this line of research, 
there will be some hope that the subj ect will go through 
the usual stages — (i) Impossible and absurd ; (2) 
Possible, but very improbable ; (3) Possible, and not 
even abnormal ; (4) Finally, normal, and " Just what 
we knew all about from the first ! " 

Meanwhile some of us have been experimenting, 
with professional assistance, and in these cases the 
question is not " Can such photographs be faked ? " 
We all know nowadays that faking photographs 
is the easiest of all possible frauds. I have spent 
many a half hour doing the faking myself, with an 
amateur photographer, by sitting for so many seconds 
in a chair and then vacating it in favour of some other 
" spook " ! 



A Family Portrait & Psychic Photography 293 

No, the whole question at present must be de- 
termined by our recognition or non -recognition of 
the photographs produced. 

If Mr Boursnell or any other photographer can 
produce (as he has done) my old nurse, who died 
twenty- three years ago, and was never photographed 
in her life, then we must find some other suggestion 
than that of "common or garden faking" as a solution 
of the mystery. There she sits, as in life, with a little 
knitted shawl round her shoulders and the head of a 
tiny child upon her lap. The eyes are closed, and give 
a dead look to the face, yet the features are to me 
quite unmistakable, and no one knew the dear old 
woman so well as I did. 

Again, I have in my little picture gallery, an old 
and very well-known Oxford professor, in whose 
house I stayed many times. 

Quite unexpectedly he appeared on one of Mr 
Boursnell's plates last summer, and although this 
special photograph is fainter than the one just de- 
scribed, the likeness can only be denied by someone 
more anxious to be sceptical than truthful. I com- 
pared the photograph with an engraving of the pro- 
fessor in much earlier life — which is to be found in the 
Life published since he passed away— with an artist 
friend (who had not known him). We went over 
the features one by one, and my friend said she 
noticed only one small difference, the exact length 
of the upper lip, and this, she considered, would be 
amply accounted for by the lapse of time between 
the two pictures and the slight lengthening of the 
upper lip owing to loss of teeth. The professor 
passed away as an old man ; the picture engraved 



294 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

in the Life represents him as he was at least twenty 
years before his death. 

But the most interesting point to me in this photo- 
graph, is the appearance on his lap of a much loved 
dog, a rather large fox terrier named " Bob." I 
had not noticed Bob until a daughter of the pro- 
fessor pointed him out to me, and now I cannot 
understand having missed him at first. 

Bob was not only the most important person in the 
Oxford household, but he was good enough to be very 
fond of me, so it seems to me quite natural that he 
should have come with his master to pay me a visit. 

I remember arriving at the house one dark winter's 
evening after an absence of over two years, and Bob's 
welcome to me was so ecstatic that he nearly knocked 
me down in a vain attempt to get his paws round my 
neck. 

I heard the professor, who was always rather 
jealous of Bob's affections, say in a whisper to his 
wife : "Most touching thing I ever saw, that dog's 
welcome when Miss Bates arrived ! " 

Dear Bob ! I am so glad he can still come and see 
me, with his dearly loved master. 

Another shuffle of the photographs brings to the 
top a sweet girlish face and figure, " sixteen summers 
or something less." 

She appeared first upon a plate in the summer of 
1905, but so indistinctly as to the face that I could 
not recognise it. 

A few months ago the same figure appeared again, 
but quite clearly this time, and involuntarily, as I 
looked at it, I exclaimed : " Why, of course, it is Lily 
Blake ! " 



A Family Portr^ it & Psychic Photography 295 

Now it is nearly thirty years since I met this 
charming child ; during my first visit to Egypt. She 
and her father (a well-known physician) and her aunt, 
were spending a six weeks' holiday in Cairo, and I saw 
more of her than would otherwise have been the case, 
because she was the playmate of another young girl — 
the child of friends of mine at Shepheard's Hotel. 

Lily was a sweet-looking, delicate girl, with soft, 
sleepy blue eyes, and was always dressed in a simple, 
artistic fashion. A few months after our return to 
England I saw in the papers the death of this pretty 
child ; for she was little more at the time. I wrote a 
letter of condolence and sympathy, which was at once 
answered by the aunt in very kind fashion ; and since 
then I have seen nothing to remind me of Lily until 
this last year has brought her once more within my 
ken. I am only too thankful to realise that any 
influence so pure and beautiful as hers, may be 
around me sometimes in my daily life. 

And now let me say, in the words of our great 
novelist : 

" Come, children, let us shut up the box and the 
puppets, for our play is played out ! " 

Only I trust in this case we have managed to rise 
a little above the usual atmosphere of Vanity Fair. 

Surely the aim of all ps3^chic research should be to 
give us a scientific, as we have already, thank God, a 
spiritual, foundation for the " Hope that is in us." 

Spirit photographs and spirit materialisations and 
abnormal visions or abnormal sounds amount to very 



296 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

little, if we look upon them as an end in themselves, 
and not as the s5rmbols and the earnest of those 
greater things which " Eye hath not seen nor ear 
heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man 
to conceive." 

I remember, years ago, in the course of a deeply 
interesting conversation with Phillipps Brooks, the 
late Bishop of Massachusetts, that I asked him what 
he thought about modern theosophy, which was just 
then becoming a culte in his native town of Boston. 
There was a great deal of talk at the time about the 
new philosophy and the wonderful phenomena said 
to accompany its propaganda. Sir Edwin Arnold 
had written his " Light of Asia," and Oliver Wendell 
Holmes had welcomed it with wondering awe, as 
something approaching a new revelation. And 
smaller people were talking about the historical 
Blavatsky tea-cups, and hidden heirlooms found in 
Indian gardens, and some of us were wondering how 
soon we should learn to fly, and what would come 
next. 

The bishop's answer to my question was so genial, 
so characteristic, and showed such divine common- 
sense ! 

" It is not a question of flying,^'' he said. " I should 
like to fly as much as anybody ; and a queer sort of 
bird I should appear ! " (He was well over six feet, 
and broad in proportion.) 

" If you suddenly found you could fly," he con- 
tinued, " it would be absorbing on Monday morning, 
intensely interesting on Tuesday, interesting on 
Wednesday, and quite pleasant on Thursday, but 
by the end of the week it would be getting normal, 



A Family Portrait & Psychic Photography 297 

and you would want to discover some other new 
power. No, believe me, the real question is not 
flying, but where you would fly, and what you 

WOULD DO WHEN YOU GOT THERE." 

This sums up the case in a nut shell, and seems to 
me only another way of saying : " Don't forget 
the spiritual significance beneath the scientitic 
symbol." 

And I would add : " Let us all join hands in the 
interesting and absorbing work of trying to make 
our symbols as scientific as we can, by finding out the 
laws which govern them, as well as all other things, 
in this universe of Love and Law. Probably we 
are here to learn, above all things else, that Love 
and Law are ONE." 

Many people have had far more remarkable ex- 
periences than mine. For various good reasons I 
have carefully abstained from any attempt to culti- 
vate, or in any way increase, the sensitiveness w^hich 
is natural to me. 

I can only assure my readers that my record has 
been absolutely accurate. In many cases it would 
have been very easy to write up the stories into some 
far more dramatic form ; but by doing so the w^hole 
aim and object of my book would have been de- 
stroyed. 

I wanted to trace the thread of what we at present 
consider abnormal, through the whole skein of a 
single life, hoping thereby to encourage others to 
do the same. 

It is only by putting these things down, if not for 
publication, then in some diary or commonplace 



298 SEEN AND UNSEEN 

book, that we can realise how far our normal life is, 
even now and here, interpenetrated by another plane 
of existence. 

And so farewell to all kind readers who have fol- 
lowed me to the end of my personal record of curious 
events — curious chiefly by reason of our present im- 
perfect knowledge. 



APPENDIX 

I 

Much has been said of the folly and triviality of all 
messages coming, or purporting to come, from the 
Unseen. I think here, as elsewhere, hke clings to 
like, and we get very much what we deserve ; or 
rather, to put it in a more philosophical and 
Emersonian way, we receive what belongs to us. 

Emerson tells us in one of his most illuminating 
passages, that everything which belongs to our 
spiritual estate is coming to us as quickly as it can 
travel. All the winds of heaven, all the waves of 
earth, are bringing it to us, and neither angel nor 
devil can prevent our taking what is ours or rejecting 
what is not ours. 

This is a universal law, and applies to automatic 
writing as to everything else. Emphatically we 
get what belongs to our spiritual estate. 

Therefore any casual and general remarks as to 
the foolishness of all automatic writing, must of 
necessity be made by those who are ignorant of 
this spiritual law, or whose experience of such 
messages is very limited. 

I intend to give a few which I have myself received, 
in the form of an Appendix to my book. With one 
exception, they all come from a very dear fiiend, 
who passed into the other sphere little more than 
a year ago under pecuharly happy circumstances. 
I do not wish to give his name, although it would 
add considerably to the interest of the narrative. 
I shall therefore call him Mr Harry Denton. The 
messages will be given exactly in the form in which 
they were received, and without any editing. We 
never discussed theological ideas from any stand- 
299 



300 APPENDIX 

point of creed ; but I imagine thi.t my friend, when 
here, would have looked upon Jesus Christ as one 
of the many inspired teachers of ^he world, and that 

his views were cosmic rather thai religious in any 

narrow sense — and certainly religious, in the broad 
sense of the term, rather than thological. 

The first conversation (for tis is a better de- 
scription of my friend's commiiications than the 
word message) refers to my own aiitude, as compared 
with that of a lady friend of mie, regarding Jesus 
of Nazareth. 

H. D. — I see a great stream f light round you 
Kate, and it seems to have coe with your truer 
conception of Jesus Christ. Its all right for your 
friend to say she prefers to put e matter aside and 
leave it alone. That is just thbest thing she can 
do ; in fact, the only thing she ,n do at present. 

The seed is still undergroundnd the moment of 
emergence has not come. To t and force it above 
ground just now, would be fat; It would also be 
immature and uncalled for. T old husks of man- 
made creeds must drop off giually, leaving the 
bud they protected intact, ncbe torn off by an 
impatient hand. 

So far her instinct seems toe a true one. But 
the case is widely different ioru. The husks have 
fallen off, as a matter of facind the discomfort 
and sense of something wr^ arose from your 
knowing that you were only ving desperately to 
clutch on to them, when theie, strong bud was 
there, able and ready to talts proper share of 
sunshine and rain, and even tar the cold winds of 
misrepresentation and misun^tanding if need be 

"QUIT YOU LIKE ¥, BE STRONG."' 
That is your lesson-book, ayou will never feel 
happy or content until you learning it. 

Surely you must feel howch you have gained 
since you faced your own s ? 



APPENDIX 301 

E. K. B. — Yes, Harry, I do ; but I don't quite 
understand your position. Are you at the same 
point of view ? 

H. D. — No ; not yet. It is all rather foreign to 
my previous notions. I thouglit of Jesus of Nazareth 
as a great teacher — one of the great teachers of the 
world — but I had still to learn His unique position 
as regards our chain of worlds. 

Thsy tell me here that He was the first to attain 
to the full stature of the Divine Man as he existed 
in the thought of the Absolute. 

Spiritual evolution is the process, apparently 
the only process, whereby a Son of God in this sense 
can appear. And ccons of time have been necessary 
to produce this line Flower of Humanity. Your 
own band are helping me to understand this. 
Having attained, being the anointed One, it is given 
to Him to bring the whole race after Him. 

This is quite a different conception from my 
former one, and the one held by most of those whom 
in old days we called Unitarians. 

You have had to unlearn, or rather to drop, some 
of the husks of old tradition which have been guard- 
ing the truth for you, whereas I have still to come 
up to the truth ; but the point reached will be the 
same, whether the approach to it is from north or 
south — do you see ? 

In Christ Jesus, they tell me, we are all new 
creatures, as a matter of fact ; because, consciously 
or unconsciously, we are working together with Him 
to realise and manifest ourselves, as made after the 
Image of God. 

He is the example and the pledge for us. St Paul 
saw this, of course, and your present position 
iUuminates his teaching for me enormously. So 
I have much to thank you for, Kate. It is easier 
to learn from those we know and trust, than from 
strangers. 

And, moreover, when we can learn from the loved 



302 APPENDIX 

ones on earth as well as through the loved ones here, 
it makes the links in the golden chain complete, 
and helps us to reaUse the unity and solidarity of 
our common existence, in the Father — with the Son. 

H. D. 

II 

Another morning I had told H. D. that I had been 
reading an article in The Nineteenth Century — and 
After y I think, entitled " An Agnostic's Progress," 
and asked if he had sensed it through me at all. 

H. D . — Yes. We will begin with that this morning. 
I am very glad you read it, for it is curiously like 
my own experiences in the same line. 

Since coming over here, and thereby coming into 
such direct touch with you, I have been able to grasp 
the key to much that puzzled me on the other side. 

As my views became more spiritualised I saw 
there must be more truth in the Christian religion 
than outsiders supposed, and yet I knew it could 
not be absolutely true in the form in which it has 
been handed down. 

That was for me unthinkable, because I saw it 
would be a sudden and catastrophic incursion upon 
a cosmos of Law and Order. 

It would mean God working in the highest depart- 
ments of His Creation, as He is never seen to work 
in the lower ones. And my faith in Him prevented 
my entertaining such an idea ! Schemes and plans 
of salvation belong to the comparative childhood 
of the race, not to the full-grown spiritual man. 
They are still in the fairy-tale stage, holding a 
truth, but acting only as the husk of the truth. 

The unity of the race ; the necessity for self- 
sacrifice in realising that unity :' that by giving our 
life for our brothers we save ou ' Life, which is that 
unity in which the brethren a/e included — all this 
I could accept in Christ's teadiing or the teaching 



APPENDIX 303 

of the Apostles ; but the rest : tlie detail, the care- 
fully arranged scheme of the Atonement, etc., as 
dogmatic doctrines — all these seemed to me so 
obviously the desperate attempts of man at a certain 
stage of development to fit in spiritual facts with 
the most probable theories ; and to say that men 
who wrote of these things were inspired, and there- 
fore infallible, was absurd. 

Even in my short life, I had seen the world pass 
through several stages of behef and assimilate them 
in turn. 

As a child, I was told that God was angry with 
people for sinning and breaking His commandments, 
and so Jesus Christ offered to come and die on the 
cross to appease His just wrath. 

That seemed a great puzzle to me, because, al- 
though it might account for what happened before 
Christ came and until He came, I could not under- 
stand why God should go on letting people come into 
the world who would break His laws, and make Him 
still more angry for centuries and centuries. That 
seemed to me, as a child, so unnecessary. 

Later I was told it was not God's anger but His 
sense of justice that had to be appeased and satisfied, 
which was a distinct step in advance. 

A little later, however, I read that this was not 
the hidden truth of the doctrine. The religious 
world (the thoughtful section of it) now arrived 
at the idea that it was not God who needed to be 
satisfied or appeased in any of His attributes, but 
MAN, and that GOD — in the person of his Son — 
came into the world to reconcile the world to Him, 
and not Himself to the world. 

This was a complete bouleversement of the whole 
situation, though it came so gradually that few 
appreciated that fact. 

The last suggestion appeared to me by far the 
most luminous. In human hfe it is invariably the 
lower nature that needs to be reconciled and con- 



304 APPENDIX 

ciliated ; whilst the higher nature, in proportion to 
its development, is forgiving and tolerant and wide- 
minded, and does not prate about its own high 
sense of justice requiring to be appeased. The best 
type of man punishes a wrong-doer in order that he 
may learn to do better and leave off tormenting and 
wronging his fellow-creatures ; not to appease any 
instinct in his own breast, for that would be egotism, 
no matter how we might try to disguise the fact. 

Now if it would be a blot upon the best con- 
ceivable man to be egotistical, a fortiori must it 
be upon God. 

To conceive otherwise is to make God in the 
likeness of the lower and not the higher humanity. 
I thought all that out very clearly. 

Still this crux remained for me, that to be 
suddenly, at any arbitrary moment in the world's 
history, obliged, as it were, to send an absolutely 
divine part of Himself into the world, was the way 
a man would act faced by an unforeseen catastrophe, 
but not the way in which God has acted throughout 
the rest of our history. 

A succession of teachers, enlightening the world 
by degrees, and culminating in the ANOINTED Son 
of God — the Flower of Humanity — this is entirely 
in line with the processes of Nature and the laws 
of God, so far as we know them. 

All progress has its culminating point. 

iEons have passed to produce the most exquisite 
crystals, the highest forms of vegetation, of animals, 
of men. Then came the slow processes of civilis- 
ing and educating men ; the dim instincts of fear 
and propitiation, merging, by slow degrees, in the 
first conceptions of Love, as something apart from 
desire, and so forth. 

Was I to be expected to shut my eyes to all these 
known facts, and bolt down the theories contained 
in one Book, written by human authors, no matter 
how admirable ? 



APPENDIX 305 

I felt it was impossible. 

Then I remembered with relief that these very 
dogmas, as a matter of fact, were in so fluent a state, 
that my own bare fifty years of living had seen at 
least four different high- water marks ! 

Here again therefore, under my very eyes, was 
the universal law of progress working, the moment 
it could work, by being released from the swaddling- 
clothes of the Roman Cathohc Church, which, so 
far as it is orthodox, is fossilised. 

I saw also that the whole body of dissent had 
moved on, taking up its pegs and planting them a 
little further on each time ; till a City temple, with 
its widening theology, was an established fact. 

Progress everywhere — slow, but sure — and the 
pace getting quicker, even in my short span ! Still, 
the uniqueness of Jesus of Nazareth and His influence 
over the nineteen centuries was a puzzle. 

Buddha's influence has lasted longer, Mahomet's 
almost as long (the two cancel any way), but I have 
always recognised an advance in the teaching of 
Jesus Christ. He brought a fresh element, in the 
personal note of the Sonship with GOD. 

I was at this point when I came over here. Now 
through your mind I have been able to see, and, 
oddly enough, to quicken in your soul, the seed 
already planted there. 

They tell me the illumination came to you years 
ago, at Oberammergau — no, not when you were 
there for the Passion Play — four years earlier. 

You took it in with your head then, not with your 
heart. Old traditions were too strong, I suppose, 
and you had not made up the last little bit of your 
mind, to be true to the convictions that had come 
to you through your prayers for hght. 

And so you have gone on, see-sawing to and fro, 
not really believing the old orthodox ideas, but not 
courageously sweeping them away for yourself. So 
although the key was in your hands, you have not 

u 



3o6 APPENDIX 

used it until now. You have given me the key, and 
I have been allowed, as my New Year's gift, to fit 
it in the door. 

This is how Jesus Christ has stood so long at the 
door of your heart and knocked. He could only 
enter through the one door — namely, that one opened 
in the highest point of your spiritual realisation. I 
see now that He comes in at that door in each soul, 
and, as spiritual evolution unfolds in each heart, so 
is the special position of that door shifted ; but the 
fact of His presence is the vital one ! It was not 
possible for Him to do otherwise than hide His face, 
as it were, whilst you were barring His only door of 
access — i.e. your true point of realisation. 

It all seems so clear to me now. And this is how 
He comes to so many in different guises. 

He is the Perfected Manifestation of GOD, as the 
Divine Man — the Flower of Humanity. 

But He can come into the heart in the narrowest 
creed, so long as the holder of that creed is at his 
true point of growth and not trying to stifle God's 
gift of ever- advancing truth by cowardly want of 
trust, or fear of being worse off in the end, by 
being absolutely honest to himself and his own 
convictions in the present. 

It has been a long message, and you have taken 
much of it awkwardly, but on the whole it re- 
presents what I wanted to say. H. D. 

Ill 

H. D. — I feel now that you want to know what I 
meant by telHng Miss R. it was the likeness to the 
old world which puzzled me here. 

You see, we have all imbibed traditional ideas 
with our mother's milk, however much our in- 
tellects may have modified them. Instinct is 
stronger than intellect, because it is more elemental. 

The first thing that struck me was that truths 



APPENDIX 307 

which are latent on earth are made manifest 
here. 

(Here comes an interpolation.) 

You can take my words so easily that we must 
guard against wasting time in mere verbosity. I 
must teach you to condense more. We must strike 
some sort of balance between my brevity and your 
amplification. At present it is as well to get the 
instrument into proper working order before 
worrying too much over these details. 

(He then resumed.) 

It is as if you turned the old earth garment 
inside out, and saw the very fabric of it, which the 
earth looms have hitherto concealed by the warp 
and woof of the manufactured article. 

For instance, you are told on earth that you are 
making your own future conditions by right or wrong 
thinking. Here you see the absolute, material 
results of right and wrong thinking, just as if you 
were looking at two different patterns, woven by 
two different workers. I said material results, 
because matter here is just as real as it was on earth, 
and just as illusory, in one sense, in both spheres. 
Your matter is unreal to us. Our matter is unreal to 
you. The truth is, both are shadows cast by an 
antecedent reality on the Screens of the Universe. 

The screens are the school-houses through which 
humanity learns its lessons. 

Don't be worried ! There is no real difficulty in 
using your hand ; it is only trying to compromise 
between your redundancy and my brevity. 

Earth is like a gallery of sculpture. (Note by E. 
K. B. — This simile had flashed through my brain, 
and H. D. at once said : " Yes, that is very good ; you 
started it, and I pick it up and apply it.") All the 
figures and groups are perfected and complete in 
their marble or bronze or terra-cotta, as the case 
may be. 



3o8 APPENDIX 

Some groups or figures are noble, others mediocre, 
others again may be sensual and degrading, but 
they have one quality in common — for good or bad, 
they are ready made. 

Now go into the sculptor's studio, having studied 
well in the great sculpture galleries of the world. 
You go to the studio, we will suppose, as a pupil. 
He puts a lump of clay into your hands, and for the 
first time you are invited to model your own statues 
and figures, to embody your own ideas in this clay, 
which corresponds to thought stuff here. You are 
even made to understand that your houses will only 
be worthily furnished by the work of your own 
hands. Here it is the work of your own hearts, of 
your loving or unloving thoughts. 

So the first lesson we learn over here is that 
THOUGHT is not only Creative Power, as you are 
often ^old on earth, but it is also the very stuff out 
of which the creation must be moulded. It is, 
in very truth, the clay of the modeller. 

Shakespeare said truly enough " We are such stuff 
as dreams are made of," but he was referring to our 
embodied selves. 

The difference between the two worlds seems to 
me, so far as I have arrived, as the difference between 
the pupil in the sculpture gallery and in the ex- 
perimental studio. The chief part of the earth 
modelling is ready made — made by the racial thought 
stuff and the racial manipulation of it. 

Here, for the first time, we must turn to and take 
a hand in the work ourselves. It would not be 
possible to give such individual power in any lower 
sphere than this, for it would be misused, and 
would lead to terrible tragedies. 

You see some slight hints of this in what is called 
Black Magic — the wilful and intentional throwing 
of evil conditions on other people, making hard 
and cruel images of them in the mind, and so forth. 
But all that is as child's play to what would happen 



APPENDIX 309 

if the absolute clay were put into their hands, as it 
is here. 

It is the difference between thinking out an ugly 
picture ; and painting it and hanging it up in a 
gallery ; for we have objectivity here as with you. 
Naturally what comes into objective existence has 
more power than what remains latent. The latter 
can only influence exceptionally sensitive souls, 
and that to a comparatively small extent, whereas 
the former, here as with you, has a much farther 
range of influence. 

So this sort of gunpowder is not given to us until 
we are old enough to know better than to burn our 
fingers with it, in trying to make fireworks ! 

At the same time, as all stages of evolution over- 
lap, it is inevitable that some hint of these possi- 
bilities should be already in your world. Woe be 
to those who misuse them ! 

You have taken enough for this morning. H. D. 

IV 

The friend I have called Mr Harry Denton, during his 
psychic researches, came, as many others have done, 
very strongly under the influence of " Tmperator," 
the chief of the Stainton Moses controls. 

I knew that this was the case, especially during 
the last three or four years of my friend's life, and I 
always rather resented the fact, for the limitations 
of Imperator have always appealed to me so strongly, 
as to dim, perhaps unduly, his undoubted claims to 
appreciation. 

I have read many of the private Stainton Moses' re- 
cords (thanks to my friendship with the executor, with 
whom these j ournals were lef t ) , and in all those referring 
to Imperator 's communications, there was to my mind 
the same note of cock-sureness and mental tyranny. 

There was too much of finahty and self-assertion, 
too much of " Thus saith the Lord,'' about Imperator 's 



310 APPENDIX 

remarks for my rebellious soul. I could never be 
strongly impressed by any personality, however 
admirable, that so palpably exacted allegiance and 
unquestioning obedience. These must be the un- 
conscious tribute to the Genius of Holiness, as to any 
other sort of genius ; never an enforced levy upon us. 

So at least it seems to me. Certainly I would not 
escape one sort of priestcraft to set up another in its 
place, whether the niche be filled by Mrs Besant or 
Mrs Eddy or Mr Sinnett, or any other fallible fellow- 
creature. Not even Imperator can strike me as in- 
fallible ; and his own evident belief in that direction 
does not affect the question. 

It seemed to me rather to be deplored that Mr 
Denton, with his wide outlook and cosmic concep- 
tions, should fall so strongly under any special in- 
fluence, even that of the admirable Imperator ! 

So I was curious to know what his views were upon 
this subject from the other side of the veil. I will 
now leave him to speak for himself. 

H. D. — You want me to tell you just my position 
about the Imperator group before and since I passed 
to this side ? That is easily done. Remember, the 
teaching I got through Imperator was practically the 
first spiritual teaching I ever had — the first I mean, 
of course, that I could assimilate, because it appealed 
to my reason, as well as to my sense of the fitness of 
things — and therefore I can never feel sufficiently 
grateful to him and his group ; and I see that they 
can teach many who would not be amenable to a 
more distinctly spiritual appeal. 

Imperator is a great force in his way ; a sort of 
plough that goes over the hard, caked- up earth and 
throws it open to the sunshine and rain and all 
Nature's beautiful influences, to all the possibility of 
Divine influences on the corresponding sphere. 

But the limitation of Imperator I see clearly now, 
as you always appear to have done. 



APPENDIX 311 

He is, as you say, too final and too dogmatic. This 
is at once his weakness and his strength : his weak- 
ness, because it hmits his own spiritual receptivity ; 
his strength, because it focusses his power in dealing 
with materialistic minds. 

A more spiritually true perspective in his com- 
munications would rule out half the souls to whom 
his appeal is made. 

Stainton Moses has also progressed beyond the Im- 
perator influence, and this is why the communications 
between them had become so clogged and so liable to 
error. 

S. M. could not switch on to the old wires, as in the 
days when his horizon was bounded by them. This 
accounts, I see, for much of the misconception and 
apparent inconsistency of the remarks made through 
Mrs Piper, but it was very disheartening for the 
investigator as time went on and the " Light " be- 
came more and more clouded. Then there was the 
additional fact to be faced, that Mrs Piper herself be- 
came, psychically rather than physically, exhausted, 
and less able to be used from this side. 

Now I see you want to know about Frank Strong, 
and what he said about sin existing only on your 
plane, and how inconsistent this was with the pre- 
vious teachings of Stainton Moses, who was supposed 
to be speaking through Frank's assistance. 

It is so difficult to explain everything in black and 
white when there are so many shades of grey, so 
many degrees and amounts to be considered. It is 
like a question in mechanics. 

With increased momentum you get an increased 
rate as multiplied by space. I am not an expert, but 
this is practically true. In the same way, spiritual 
perception acts with increased momentum. 

All sin is failure in spiritual perception. Spiritual 
perception corresponds with the momentum of a fal- 
ling body in mechanics. Only in Divine mechanics 
it is a rising body ; but the same law holds good. 



312 APPENDIX 

You say truly that an action can only be called 
sinful when the sinner knows the higher and de- 
liberately turns to the lower. 

That is true ; but it is only half a truth. It is 
still the lack of knowledge that causes sin. With the 
fulness of knowledge of the higher (only another way 
of putting fulness of spiritual perception) must come 
the righteousness of life. 

It is the broken gleams, the little knowledge, which 
is truly a dangerous thing, for it brings responsibility, 
and therefore the capacity for sinning. Yet the 
choice between good and evil fully made, is the school- 
master to bring us to the full realisation of our nature 
as Sons of God. 

Now when Frank came over here, he was so 
greatly impressed by the dynamic force of spiritual 
perception that for the time he lost all sense of 
proportion and accuracy of judgment. Compared 
with the old earth temptations, those in his sphere 
seemed non-existent, whilst the temptations to good- 
ness were enormously increased. 

What wonder that in the dehghtful sensation 
caused by his sense of moral and spiritual freedom 
from old shackles, he should exclaim with youthful 
fervour : " Sin is only possible in your sphere — it is 
unknown here ! " Any communications of which 
he formed the channel, would of necessity be coloured 
by this dominant idea of his. Everything is a ques- 
tion of degree, andhe is learning that lesson now, I find. 
He says : " Why do people in the earth life quote 
our words as if we weie Delphic Oracles ? " 

Why, indeed ? But I am afraid I did much the 
same whilst so strongly under the Imperator in- 
fluence. 

E. K. B. — Why is Imperator so slow in throwing 
off his own spiritual limitations ? 

H. D. — I can read your mind so easily. It is 
quick and alert, and has already answered its own 
question. It is because he has a work to do on your 



APPENDIX 313 

plane amongst those who could not come in touch 
with a higher spiritual development. There are 
spiritual as well as scientific martyrs, you must 
remember ; and he is one of them. But the Divine 
Economy works very beautifully here. He is not 
conscious of any spiritual limitation, and therefore 
he is happy in his work, and tlie martyrdom I spoke 
of is unconscious. When it becomes conscious, with 
him it will mean that his present plane of work is 
finished, and that he will be removed to another 
" Form " so soon as he is prepared to teach there. 

He is essentially a teacher, and a valuable one, for 
those who have not soared beyond his present per- 
ceptions. It is all so much more simple and reason- 
able than you suppose. It is these crusted old creeds 
that have misrepresented actual conditions, and yet 
they also have been, as Imperator ; doing their owti 
work amongst the people to whom they have acted 
as necessary stepping-stones. 

That is enough for to-day ; take a rest now. 

H. D. 



The following conversation between Mr Denton and 
myself (the last of the series which I propose to give) 
took place, I see, at Buxton, 4th September 1906. 

There had been some correspondence in The Daily 
Telegraph about Time as a fourth Dimension, and I 
asked my friend if he could say anything to me on the 
subject. His reply was as follows : — 

Time is really a form of perception, not a thing 
in itself — do you understand ? 

Your limitation of perception you call Time. 

Another limitation is called Distance. 

This also is an illusion, or a limitation, whichever 
you choose to call it. 

The White Ray is the Absolute. The spectro- 
scope gives you the limitation which makes the 



314 APPENDIX 

colours perceptible to your human eyes. For the one 
who is free from these limitations, all colours exist 
and are present in consciousness at the same moment. 
But they must be split up and observed severally to 
enter into the earth consciousness. It is exactly 
the parallel of Time. 

Events in Time coincide with the colours in the Ray, 
All exist simultaneously for the one who is free from 
limitations. All must be brought into sequence for 
the one who is bound by limitations. 

This is really the key to so many puzzles, and ac- 
counts for so many occult phenomena. 

As we transcend the normal earth limits ever so 
little, so do we develop these abnormal powers, 
as they are called. But here, as everywhere, the 
reality is just the converse of the apparent. 

The true norm is the Perfect Ray — the Ceaseless 
Sound — the Perfect Vision ; and the abnormal is the 
limitation upon the earth, or upon any succeeding 
plane, short of the Absolute. But naturally we con- 
sider that normal which happens to be our stand- 
point for the moment. 

Already to me the earth limitations appear abnor- 
mal, and my more extended capacities mark the norm 
of existence for me. This must be the case naturally. 

Prevision would be more accurately termed Whole 
vision — seeing the whole and not the tiny section. 

In moments of intense joy or realisation of any 
kind, Time seems to cease, and a moment may hold 
an Eternity. Any absorbing emotion, joyful or 
sorrowful, may bring this experience. For the 
moment you are out of yourselves. This is literally 
true. You are living in the next Dimension. Time 
and Space no longer exist for you. Most of you have 
had some such experience, but of necessity it can be a 
flash only in the midst of your normal life. Ask me 
something now. 

E. K. B. — A man writing lately in The Daily 
Telegraph of Time as a fourth Dimension said some- 



APPENDIX 315 

thing about the cube as being an infinite number of 
flat planes of infinite tenuity, heaped up one over 
the other. To the person who knew only length and 
breadth, the cube would have no existence. Such a 
person would realise only an infinite number of planes 
in sequence. Yet they would all co- exist for the 
three-dimensional man of the present day. The sug- 
gestion appeared to be that, in exactly a similar way, 
events which to the three-dimensional man can only 
be perceived normally in sequence, would co-exist for a 
four-dimensional being. This would mean practi- 
cally the annihilation of Time, as giving sequence. 
Do you see Truth in this idea, and can you tell me if 
it extends also to Space ? 

H. D. — Certainly. That is just what I meant 
as regards Distance. All limitations are mental, as 
a matter of fact. We have them here, but infinitely 
fewer than in the old earth hfe. 

Mind has always been able to flash from pole to 
pole and to affect those at a distance, because mind 
and distance occupy two different planes. The latter 
is an earth hmitation. As the veil hfts a Httle, 
even on your side, so you become conscious that 
mind has these powers ; but the powers were always 
there. It merely means that you have come up with 
your own mental capacities to some small degree. 

E. K. B. — Is there any help here for my constant 
problem : Why should one's individual life be only 
now evolving in Eternity ? Do you see what I 
mean ? 

H. D. — Yes ; but I hardly know the answer to 
that tremendous problem. Still, I will try to sug- 
gest a few thoughts to you. 

To be conscious of holiness and virtue we must 
have known its antithesis — evil and separation, which 
are really synonymous. Separation from Holiness 
is evil. It is a condition, a limitation. 

It is to the Divine Essence just such a hmitation 
as Time is to the mortal. Separation is therefore 



3i6 APPENDIX 

the antecedent cause of all limitations. These must 
exist where the Wholeness or Holiness is absent. 

I must use the language of earth or you would not 
understand. Logically, of course, Holiness can 
never be absent, since it is the cause of all Existence ; 
but it is apparently absent, and this apparent absence, 
this separation, this evil in fact, acts as a spectro- 
scope. It analyses, and thus brings into our con- 
sciousness the White Ray of the Divine Nature. 

We can go no further than that. The Divine 
Chemistry, beyond this fact, must remain a mystery, 
probably for ages to come. 

We cannot tell why things are thus arranged ; we 
only know that it is so. 

As well ask why the White Ray of Light gives out 
its colours only through separating them. 

But it is easier to speak of the co-ordination of 
events. Take your own suggestion of the cube — 
that will help us best. 

Take it that each life is a cube of planes, of ex- 
periences. These experiences are co-existent and 
knit together, as firmly in the life of a human being 
as the many planes are co-existing, and knit together 
in a mathematical cube. You can dissect the cube 
and slice off infinitesimal small planes in sections. 

So is the individual life sliced off into an infinite 
number of planes by the sequences of Time (our 
three-dimensional condition). 

But these experiences — great or small, important 
or trivial (from your point of view) — exist in the cube 
of that person's earth pilgrimage, as the colours exist 
in the White Ray. 

The Ray may be split up into sequence, but the 
colours belong to it all the same, and by a perfectly 
seeing eye would be known and recognised without 
the help of the spectroscope. 

The true seer is the one who sees the cube of your 
life ; before whom it is spread out, without Time 
Separations, into planes of experience. This is the 



APPENDIX 317 

real secret of all foretelling. Such people, when honest, 
have some amount of access to the cube of earth hfe, 
some more, some less. 

Many mix up and confuse what they see ; but they 
do see beyond the plane section which Time gives to 
the normal human being. 

I think you have taken enough now. 

I will only add that, of course — as you know — there 
is nothing arbitrary in the cube of hfe, as I have called 
it. It is built up of necessary experiences and neces- 
sary consequences. But it is built up by Love and 
Wisdom, the two Elements of the Divine Nature, 
in which we live and move and have our being. 

H. D. 

VI 

The next selection that I shall give from my auto- 
matic script comes from an entirely different per- 
sonality, which can be sufficiently indicated by the 
initials E. G. 

E. G. — Worship is a necessary part of each souPs 
training, and we can only worship that which we feel 
to be above and beyond ourselves. As we grow older 
and become more developed in spiritual consciousness, 
so do we tend more and more to worship the inner and 
intangible, rather than the outer and manifest. So 
whilst the instinct of worship is always the same, the 
objects and methods must continually change with 
our own advancing realisation and unfolding con- 
sciousness. 

Those hmitations which once made for reverence 
are in time found to be cramping and to lead to super- 
stition. 

It is the same with the education of either children 
or of childish nations. 

In both cases a display of power is necessary to 
command obedience, because the childish mind can 
only apprehend from the outer, and realise the 



3i8 APPENDIX 

existence of that which it sees physically demon- 
strated. Tell a child of tender years that to be 
naughty is to be unhappy , and in ninety-nine casesout 
of one hundred he will neither understand nor be- 
lieve you. But take away his toys or his sweets or 
put him in a corner ; make him, in fact, physically 
aware of the truth that to be naughty is to bring un- 
pleasant consequences upon himself, and you have 
taken the only argument which he is capable of 
realising at a certain point of consciousness. 

This is why certain nations, at the child point of 
development, must be treated as children. They 
don't realise the appeal to the spiritual, and will only 
misconceive you and your motives, and read 
cowardice in your attempt to treat from a stand- 
point they have not reached. 

It is the same with certain religions, and this is the 
cause of much failure in mission work. 

Theosophy and Roman Catholicism appeal 
strongly to comparatively immature minds. 

Those who care more for form than for essence are 
always in the immature stage. 

They love big words and mysterious sayings and 
doings. To have something apart from others — 
whether it be happiness or knowledge — is their idea 
of bliss. Hence in most theosophists, as in all 
Roman Catholic converts, you find this note of im- 
maturity and monopoly. I say converts, because 
those born in the Roman Catholic faith are on 
different ground. Their spiritual life may grow and 
develop in spite of the creed limitations into which 
Fate has cast them, but those who deliberately 
choose such limitations give the best possible proof 
of their own standpoint. And the same may be said 
also of all strict creed religions. 

They have their great and valuable uses, as prison 
bars have their uses in a community which has not 
learnt to respect the rights and property of its neigh- 
bours. 



i 



PPENDIX 319 



Withdraw these / bars and you let loose upon 
society a pestilentiiil crew of murderers and mar- 
auders. Relax the bars of creed and you will find the 
same result. But as b\rs are not necessary for the 
advanced souls who recognise that to murder or 
defraud their fellow-creatures leads to their own 
misery, apart from any detection or punishment, so 
creeds are not necessary, under a corresponding 
evolution of the spiritual instinct, which tallies with 
the social and moral instincts noted above. 

And as treadmills and oakum picking can be dis- 
missed in the one case, so can much of the theological 
machinery for the discipHne and punishment of 
sinners against spiritual laws be dispensed with, in 
the case of those who are, spiritually speaking, com- 
ing of age. 

They come then into the full liberty of Sons of God, 
and shall be no more treated as servants, but as sons, 
as the Apostle puts it. 

This brings me to my special subject. 

There are many things of great and transcending 
interest which we are obliged to keep secret from our 
younger children, partly because they would fail to 
understand, but still more because they would mis- 
understand, and this to their own hurt and disad- 
vantage ; not to speak of possible injury to others 
through them. 

Spiritual Evolution is the true Doctrine, but it is 
not food for babes in spiritual life. 

To have an unlimited series of advancing lives and 
advancing experiences unfolded before their eyes 
would not only dismay and bewilder, but would also 
paralyse their energy for good, and terribly augment 
their capacity for evil — for the not good. 

Until they are sufficiently versed in spiritual ex- 
perience to realise the difference between purity 
and impurity, good and evil, God and the world, 
fame and peace, pleasure and happiness, the 
peace which passes understanding and the false 



320 APPENDIX 

glamour of sensual passion and sensuous self-in- 
dulgence, so long it is dangerous for them to 
know, with absolute certainty, the real facts of the 
case. 

Even the terrible and abhorrent pictures of an 
Eternal Hell, of endless flames and of undying 
worms, have had their uses. 

In this form alone could the thoroughly immature 
mind be made to realise the discomfort and misery 
that would inevitably attend wrong-doing. It was 
a truth, although not a literal truth. Many literal 
truths convey a false impression to the immature 
mind, whilst a symbolic truth may convey as true an 
impression as such a mind is capable of receiving. 

The old ideas of Heaven and Hell are already 
doomed ; but other ideas, equally untrue from the 
literal point of view, still hold their own, and will be 
more slowly eradicated. It is well this should be so. 
The world at large is not prepared yet to take this 
further step. 

Frequent examinations have been found useful 
and inevitable in school training, both as a test of pro- 
gress and still more as an encouragement. 

If you tell a school of boys and girls in January 
that a grand examination will be held the following 
December, do you suppose they will work as well and 
as diligently as if they knew there will be short ex- 
aminations at Easter and more important ones at 
midsummer ? 

Again, if you tell boys of ten years old, who are 
learning a little history, geography, and arithmetic, 
just in the Rule of Three and simple fractions, with 
perhaps a little Latin ; of the Algebra and Euclid 
and Conic sections and higher Mathematics, and 
Latin and Greek verse and Hebrew and Philosophy, 
which they must some day confront, you will puzzle 
and paralyse their brains, and leave only a sense 
of misery and revolt and helplessness, which will 
quickly show forth in reckless despair, even concern- 



APPENDIX 321 

ing the tasks which are well within their present 
capacity. 

God. in His Infinite Wisdom (of which ours is the 
feeblest reflection), acts i 1 precisely the same way 
as wise fathers and wise teachers. 

Your earth is more or less of an infant school, but 
before leaving it, some of you must prepare for the 
higher classes and learn to take your own spiritual 
responsibilities. 

It is seen that in these days of reaction and read- 
justment, many minds are puzzled and perplexed by 
the old doctrines, which they have outgrown, and 
which were never more than the outer husk and pro- 
tection for the inner kernel — the casket for the j ewel 
of spiritual truth. 

The one term of probation — the one chance for 
progress — the immediate Heaven or Hell — the Great 
White Throne of Judgment, instant and inevitable — 
all these correspond with the frequent examinations, 
with the good and bad marks — the judging of the 
school work at the end of each term. The only 
difference hes in the fact that the schoolboy knows 
he has other terms in front of him, and we are all 
aware that this is a very unfortunate fact where an 
idle boy is concerned. 

How often you may hear them say : " Never 
mind ! I'm a bit behind now — but I have three years 
more — I shall catch up later." And this is probably 
just what they fail to do; for with such characters it is 
always to-morrow that is to see the reformation which 
so often comes only when life has taught its hard 
lessons to the defaulter. 

Is it not apparent, therefore, that there has been 
wisdom and goodness in our very theological mistakes 
and illusions ? 

The opposition to spiritualistic teachings has its 
good and healthy side. It is really the fierce anta- 
gonism of the undeveloped nature towards a truth 
it dimly apprehends to be ahead of its own develop- 



322 APPENDIX 

ment ; and, tiresome as it seems, and is from one 
point of view, it is the best safeguard for the world 
at large. 

Unimaginable horrors would come to pass upon the 
earth were Power as well as Knowledge put into the 
hands of the crude and undeveloped. 

It would be arming savages with Winchester 
rifles and quick-firing guns. 

Never regret, therefore, this opposition, even whilst 
fighting against it in individual cases. 

Both must grow together till the Harvest — the 
Tares and Wheat, the Crude and the Developed — 
and the former are the enormous majority. 

This is the reason why all Truth must be born into 
each world through a fight and an agony; for it 
always comes as an advance upon normal conditions, 
no matter in which sphere it may be. And it is 
through the struggle that the Victory comes and the 
Light is bom. 

Let people jeer and deride when they hear of a 
future life, not so very different from your own ; 
of houses and lectures and boats and horses, of 
pet animals, and so forth. 

Those who jeer and deride or talk of blasphemy 
are still at the orthodox stage, when it is well for 
them to know only of one school, of one term, of 
one chance, and of an immediate and final judgment 
for the deeds done on earth. 

Others are old enough (spiritually speaking) to 
know the truth i.e. — that GOD is in all, of an infinite 
series of spheres, through which each travelling soul 
must pass, gaining ever fresh light, growing ever 
into fresh knowledge and realisation of Divine Beauty 
and Divine Love ; spheres differing little externally 
from the one left behind, but enormously in the 
capacities and qualities which by degrees the soul 
will unfold in the Cosmic Journey. 

The outer will become more and more the result 
of the inner condition ; for the creative faculty, 



scarcely born will 
spiral. Dow ^ her 



APPENDIX 323 



you, flourishes in the ascending 
you are babes, with your clothes 
made for you, ^^voii^Dottles filled for you, and depend- 
ent on others for the conditions of life, but by de- 
grees you will enter on the full responsibility and 
the full joy and glory of independent existence, which 
yet will be unified — first into the life of the Affinities 
— the True and completed Being — and then into the 
life of that Body of Christ, of which St Paul speaks 
in his prophetic moments, where '* there shadl be 
neither Greek nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, Bond 
nor Free," but Christos, the glorified and crowned 
Humanity, shall be all in all— GOD IN MAN ; the 
coping-stone of the Building, whose foundations were 
laid as MAN (the Image and Likeness of God) IN 
GOD. 






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